Moving Your ‘Non-Movable’ Android Apps to an SD Card

Have an Android device that’s quickly running out of space due to limited internal memory? Have a large collection of apps that refuse to move over to your SD card? If either of these is true, then you need to know about a simple tweak that can be done to forcibly move over many apps to your SD card – all without rooting.

A nice feature that most Android devices offer is an SD slot, and nicer still is the fact that the Android OS allows you to move most apps over to external storage to help free up space on the main device. For those with phones or tablets that offer plentiful storage, this perk might not matter much, but for those with older or budget devices, it could be the only way that additional apps can be installed.

Take, for example, the HTC Legend I used to use, which offered a mere 160MB to take advantage of, or more recently, Sony’s Xperia Ray, which improved things a bit with a boost to 300MB. Sure – these devices weren’t expensive when new, but storage this limited is ridiculous. It’s no wonder some users end up needing to move some of their apps off of the device and onto external storage.

But if you’re an Android user who has moved apps before, you’re likely aware that there are limitations. Some software is considered to be integral and thus cannot be moved, and then there is other software like Google Maps that you may not even use but can’t move even with the trick we’re going to talk about.

Complicating things further, when developers publish their apps, they can design them in such a way that they can’t be moved over to an SD card. This is what some would call a dumb move, but the reason for it is because phone storage is faster than external flash; even so, having a choice would be nice.

For those games and other apps that don’t inherently allow you to move them to an SD card, there are solutions – and they don’t require rooting. Instead, you’ll need to download the Android development kit (aka: SDK), change the default install destination on your phone, move your apps over, and then revert back to stock. If it sounds complicated, it really isn’t.

There are a couple of things to bear in mind before diving into this though, and those are important. While using this technique will allow you to move over widgets and OS tools, I recommend that you don’t do it. After a phone boots, the SD card is not immediately mounted, and as such, if your widgets or other important software is stored there, you’re not going to have access to it right away. Further, even after the storage is mounted, you might run into an issue where widgets are bugged because of the configuration.

Apps that Shouldn’t be Moved to the SD Card

Widgets – no matter how menial in usefulness or design.

System tools – many might not operate as intended without being on the phone’s storage.

Important apps – you don’t want to risk an important app becoming inaccessible when you need it.

I can’t stress the above enough, so be wise!

NOTE: Even after applying the below tweak, some apps may still refuse to be moved over. In all likeliness, Facebook will be one of these. In this case, rooting your mobile device will be the only way to truly move or remove such an app.

Step 1: Downloading and Using Android’s ‘adb’

Given the fact that a simple tweak like this should be doable with nothing other than the mobile device itself, it’s unfortunate that software must be downloaded to get the job done. On the upside, nothing has to be installed; on the downside, the download weighs in at ~450MB. That’s a big “ouch” for those with tight bandwidth constraints, but don’t fret: We have a solution.

The Android SDK package is a series of folders littered with various tools, and as it turns out, the folder with the tool we need (adb) can be pulled out and used independently. As that folder weighs ~4MB, we took the liberty of archiving it and uploading it to our server here (1,732KB, VirusTotal scan). If you run into an issue with that download, or prefer to get the tool straight from the source, head here. Once the SDK is downloaded and extracted, the “platform-tools” folder can be found inside of the “sdk” folder.

Note: If Java is installed (*cringe*), the entire Android SDK (targeted for developers) can be installed to your computer, including the platform-tools that we need. You can get that done by clicking the “SDK Manager” executable in the extracted folder (or ‘android.bat’ in the tools folder if that doesn’t work), and then checking off what you want and finally hitting the install button. If you take this route, you’ll need to monitor where everything (including adb) is being installed to.

Step 2: Setting Up Your Phone or Tablet

The options that need to be configured to prepare your phone or tablet could vary from device to device, so bear that in mind. Almost always, the ‘USB debugging’ option in the Developer options menu will need to be checked off; if no Developer menu is present, go to the “About device” option in the main system menu and tap on the device’s “Build number” option 7 times.

Sometimes, enabling USB debugging is all that’s needed, but if not, you’ll want to fish around for connection options and make sure the device is set to to “MTP”. This option is usually kept inside of a special menu for your device; on the Sony Xperia Ray, it’s in a menu simply called “Xperia™”.

After the tweak has been applied, feel free to undo all of the options you set. I’d actually recommend disabling the USB debugging option since it shouldn’t ever be needed except for this purpose (or rooting).

Step 3: Running the Tweak

With the software and phone prepped, it’s time to open up a Windows command prompt and travel to the folder where ‘adb’ can be found; this location is wherever you A) extracted our special download to; B) extracted the official Android SDK download to or C) installed the platform-tools to using the official Android SDK manager.

NOTE: If after plugging in your phone, it’s not picked up by Windows, you might need to install some drivers. For any Android phone you have, starting here would be a good idea.

Once you’ve established where the ‘adb’ executable is, you can navigate to its location using the ‘cd’ tool. Using the first location mentioned above, moving to the folder would require this command:

cd “C:\Users\Rob\Desktop\platform-tools\”

Quotes are not needed around the filepath unless one of the folder names has a space in it.

NOTE: An alternative way to open a command-line in the same folder as adb.exe is to go to that folder in your file manager, hold Shift, and then right-click with your mouse in an open area (eg: not on top of a file) and choose to “Open command window here”. You’ll see something like this as a result.

Discovering the plugged-in device, and then changing its default install location

Here are the commands that need to be run:

adb devices Probes Android devices connected to the PC. Do this first to assure that the phone is being detected.

Once the last command is set, you can run the ‘get-install-location’ command again to verify that it took effect. If so, then you can unplug your phone and get on with moving some apps.

Use Linux? The steps for this tweak are no different, although acquiring ‘adb’ can be made easier if your distro’s repository stores it. In the case of Linux Mint, all I had to do was run sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb, and seconds later I was good to roll. If adb isn’t able to be installed this way for you, you can download and extract the Android SDK to access adb.

Step 4: Moving Your Apps to an SD Card

Below is an example of an app that isn’t able to be moved to external storage without this tweak. On the left, the device was left as it was; on the right, the tweak above was applied. As you can see, the tweak lit up the “Move to SD card” option.

Before & After Install Location Change

Figuring out which apps can or can’t be moved is the most tedious part of using Android, but fortunately, apps exist to make the chore a lot easier to deal with. One solution I’ve used is called “App 2 SD“, as it’s both free and intuitive. Here’s another before and after example:

Before & After Install Location Change – As Seen in App 2 SD

As you can see, using this tweak suddenly allows me to move over many apps to my SD card, freeing up valuable space. As mentioned earlier, I emplore you to not copy over things like widgets as it will result in some headaches. Some system tools might be fine to be moved over, but I’d be careful there also.

Once you have moved over everything that you need to, I’d highly recommend reverting the tweak by connecting your phone and setting the default location back to 0. This will avoid any potential headaches, some of which I’ve experienced in the past.

With that, go forth and free up some space!

This article was originally published on December 21, 2011, and since updated.

http://www.facebook.com/darin.goins Darin Goins

I installed the SDK program. After install I go to the CD prompt and enter the information as you show C:Program Files (x86)Androidandroid-sdkplatform-tools and the file is not found.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It seems that since this article was published, Google either moved the install location or gave users the ability to install it outside of their Program Files. You might want to look here instead:

C:UsersYour UsernameAppDataLocalAndroidandroid-sdkplatform-tools

Priyash Jain

It really works…Great tweak…Now wont have to buy a new phone…Can enjoy everything on my android…

http://www.facebook.com/rishi.shukla Rishi Shukla

it is usefull facebook apps?

Tom Torbeyns

Do you have an Android 4.0

Umer Saleem

I have Android 4.04
Still i can’t move my facebook app what to do :( ?

Ismaeel Ha

use ” force2SD {root} “

Marcos Souza

will it work propperly?

Azri Ali

“Once you’ve established where the ‘adb’ executable is, you can navigate to its location using the ‘cd’ tool. Using the first location mentioned above, moving to the folder would require this command:”

i dont get this ^ , what does it mean?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Refer to this section, with its screenshot:

“NOTE: An alternative way to open a command-line in the same folder as adb.exe is to go to that folder in your file manager, hold Shift, and then right-click with your mouse in an open area (eg: not on top of a file) and choose to “Open command window here”.”

Azri Ali

im sorry Rob, i still dont get the point there. where can i find the file manager ? please help me

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Double-click “Computer’ on the desktop or in the Start menu, that’s the file manager. You simply need to go to the folder where you extracted the files, fine adb, and then do that right-click + shift trick I mentioned.

Azri Ali

my manager file shows only “edb.exe” and not “edb”? ive clicked ” edb.exe” multiple times and it still wont appear as “edb” is there something wrong?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You mean adb? If it shows .exe, that’s fine. That’s just the file extension. Just make sure you’re in the same folder as in my screenshot and you’ll be golden.

Azri Ali

okay ive inserted the keywords u provided but my device isnt listed in “open command window” after i typed adb devices. I even typed cd “C:Users……” and nothing happened. is it my usb wire? it has been connected to my laptop but inside the command window nothing has been listed as “devices attached”

You’re saying that when you use the ‘adb devices’ command, it just says ‘List of devices attached’ but doesn’t actually list anything? What kind of phone do you have? It sounds like you’re in need of an official driver.

hey my man, looks like i have the driver now thanks to you. now im opening the command window and it comes out like this (image). so what command should i write first, because the “screenshot that you gave to me seems different with mine.

Azri Ali

Rob, i couldn’t be happier man. Thank you so much. I finally made it. I just moved the non movable apps to my SD card. and yeah the problem was the driver. again thanks for these technology information :D

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Ahh, glad you got it all sorted! Happy to help :)

Azri Ali

but Rob, why apps like google drive, youtube, gmail, and yahoo mail or some as you mentioned above in the artcle still cannot be movable to sd card? only facebook, whatsapp, twitter, and instagram i only managed to. this is very frustrated especially for emails, they consume a lot of my internal data.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If the apps were pre-installed on the device, they can’t likely be moved. Others might have changed their permissions since those screenshots were taken.

Azri Ali

so even i use linux there will be no difference right ?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Use Linux to apply the tweak? No, it’s the same tweak regardless of how you apply it. You could even apply it on the phone itself if you root it.

Azri Ali

alright noted on that :) Thank you

Guest

thanks Rob it really worked,
but there is some correction in android 4.0.4 ICS , the syntax is wrong

This must have been updated not long after this article went live, because I did in fact have ICS’ SDK installed. I’ll update the information here. Thanks a bunch!

Ayyash

i have a problem when i try to the third command{adb shell pm set-install-location 2} it give me nothing **** android 4.0.4********

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

Does the “get” version of that command work? You might want to try the pre-ICS version of the command even though you’re using ICS:

adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2

Guest

hey i have xperia L….i have done whatever you
said.Everything went fine,but still i am not able to move apps to
external sd..my fone internal is divided into 2 parts 1)phone
memory2)internal memory….the app manager doesn’t show move to external option.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’d recommend going into Android’s system settings > Apps. Then find an app or two that you want to move and see if the Move to SD option is in there. If it’s not in there at all, it could be that the SD card is not being detected by the phone (which means it couldn’t have been used before), or it could be a limitation of the phone itself. When in doubt, it’s always good to test with one of the apps in my screenshots above that suddenly became movable, since the apps you are trying to move might be impossible to move without a root.

Nalaka Amarasinghege

could you install your apps on the SD card after this..?

mystrdat

You need to either 1) spend an incredible amount of time trying to delete the fake virtual partition and merge it back into the internal memory as a singleton so you can use your real card as first and only external storage 2) install Cyanogenmod and enable “Swap Storages” in NovaThor advanced settings, which will swap your external card to be first in the card list (and hence used as the external storage memory by the app managers).

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Thanks a ton for this info. It’s the first confirmation I’ve seen here of there being able to be two real partitions of the main memory.

mystrdat

Yes, the late Android design features 2 main partitions (the OS data and a virtual card) on the built-in eMMC memory. There are reasons why it’s handled this way, most notably performance and availability to the OS. Lately there are custom boot ROMs/scripts coming from xda-devs that allow you to reformat and effectively remove the virtual partition to use the full eMMC space for OS internal data a real card instead.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I find it an odd design, but it’d be no problem at all if people were able to set an install location “3” if their phone has that partitioned design :-/

mystrdat

It’s not well thought-out through I would agree, at least not in it’s final shape. I’m guessing this isn’t the final strategy Google wants to use eventually.

vani

could you specify from which andriod versions this change happened, as i am using xperia C with android 4.2.2 and it also has two main partition like mentioned above. and i thought this was sony way of memory distribution?

mystrdat

I cannot, because I don’t know.

Jaikrat Singh Tariyal

how to move default FB app to SD card. I have done all above mentioned things but still not able to move FB to SD card.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

As the article mentions, certain apps cannot be moved. That includes Facebook and some Google services. You likely could if you rooted your phone, but success may vary.

Pat Sonnek

But Facebook is the problem. It takes more of my phones memory than any other app. Being able to move any app but facebook is just a bandaid.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I agree, but it’s better than nothing. You can blame Android for that one, or whoever decides to make Facebook mandatory. It’s a further insult that Facebook on Android truly sucks as an app.

Pablo Ahumada

Hi

I have 2.3.6 and I have installed 2.3.3 and it works fine, but WhatsApp dont send or receive messages. Works with Facebook ?

Please any help

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If you experience issues like that after an app is moved to the SD card, it’s recommended to move it back to the phone. Some apps can exhibit odd behavior when moved when they’re not meant to be. It’s the reason widgets should always be on the phone itself, because the performance has to be good and access, immediate.

Pete D

Awesome article! very helpful indeed. Thanks Rob. Saved me a lot of time having this page here.

http://www.facebook.com/Slater.Nexus Muhammad Ahmed AboElfotouh

Please… First, my mobile is Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S, and I’m using Windows 8. I downloaded that adt-bundle-windows-x86. When I open it I get 2 folders, eclipse & sdk. When I open eclipse then the file eclipse, I just get this http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/8286/sdki.jpg and in sdk/platform-tools I just have this http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/5152/sdkzx.jpg by the way I can not find C:Program Files (x86)Android nor C:Users(Your Username)AppData. Please I need help to be able to move the apps to my SD card, that’s horrible I can’t install anymore apps nor even update the current apps. Thanks!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I am not sure what Eclipse is for, but the second screenshot shows the “adb.exe” application that’s needed for this. So you’ll need to open up a command-prompt and navigate to that folder (cd “C:Muhammadadt-bundle-windows-x86sdkplatform-tools”) and then perform the steps mentioned above. Good luck!

http://www.facebook.com/Slater.Nexus Muhammad Ahmed AboElfotouh

Well, IT WORKS… Really thanks so much, but I have to say, not ALL the apps move, some still can’t be moved, and they take much space as Facebook, OfficeSuite, Adobe Reader! You must create a new station, and THANKS SO MUCH!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It sucks about not being able to move everything, especially since some apps like Facebook take up so much space. Glad you got it to work!

http://www.facebook.com/Slater.Nexus Muhammad Ahmed AboElfotouh

My phone is not ROOTED… How can I root it??? I wanna take screenshoots and so, and, simple question please, what’s the meaning of ROOT??? Is it useful or better be unrooted???

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Rooting a phone means gaining access to the underbelly of the software – files that you normally can’t. The process of rooting is different for each phone, so your best bet is to simply Google the phone name and put “root” at the end. A bunch of results should pop up.

Megan Lau

when i get to the coding it said that file is not found and that it is not recognize as internal or extern command.

i save the adt-bundle-window to my desktop so it is easy access

this is what i put: C:UsersMeganDesktopadt-bundle-windowssdkplatform-tools

however it doesnt work

PLEASE HELP :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Inside that “platform-tools” folder, is there an “adb” file? Your error means you’re not in the proper location, so with the command-prompt open, type in “cd Desktop” without quotes and then “cd adt-bundle-windows” and so on up until the last folder. Alternatively you can type a portion of the folder name and hit tab for it to autocomplete it. If you’re in the platform-tools folder, the adb command should work.

Gilad

I owe you my life… :-P

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

In lieu of life, we also accept pageviews!

Abraham

Hi Rob
I am Robbed of my peace and sleep.
Your Troubleshooting was a success but……go through the screenshots and plz reverse engineer my sleep and peace.
Thanks In advance

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It appears that things are working like they should, so the fact you have no apps to move simply seems to mean that the apps you’re trying to move HAVE to remain on the device (like Google Maps, Facebook, et cetera). To forcibly move those apps you’ll likely need to root the device (and even then I’m not sure it’ll work).

Abraham

Ur response is highly appreciated.
But sadly I have already rooted the phone. Moreover before rooting with the same apps I had 55% free memory now it has reduced to 43% & still counting low.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If you happen to have a LOT of apps installed, I’d recommend taking a look at the ones you don’t use too often and get rid of them. Even when you move over apps, some remnants are left on the device that have to be there, usually taking up about 10% of the entire size. So when you have a -lot- of apps installed, it can still fill your phone quick even if you move most of them.

Abraham

Using xperia sk17i

http://www.facebook.com/jymbrittain Jym Brittain

I’ve tried this tweak on my LG Optimus (LG 55). when I issue the setInstallLocation command I get “[1] Killed pm setInstallLocation 2″ When I issue the getInstallLocation command after that it hasnt changed from 0[auto]. Any advice?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You may want to try doing this on another PC; your issue -may- be the result of how Windows is handling the USB device. And on that note, make sure your phone is in the standard storage USB mode when plugged in, not charge.

http://www.facebook.com/jymbrittain Jym Brittain

It was in storage mode. I’ve tried it on a Win7 and a Win XP box. Same results – [1] Killed pm setInstallLocation 2.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

This might be a stupid question, but did you install the official drivers for the phone, or just let Windows take care of it?

You might have a phone that just refuses to allow this to work. I’ve seen it happen with one other phone, but it’s not common. The fact you get a result back at all tells me you’re doing it correctly. The next step I’d recommend is uninstalling the SDK you have (using the UI) and installing the one that matches your phone’s Android phone exactly.

If you did happen to have the exact version, maybe remove it and update to the latest and see if that treats you better.

http://www.facebook.com/jymbrittain Jym Brittain

I’ve followed your advice… I have a phone that just refuses to allow this to work, darn it

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If you’re desperate enough, you might want to try changing the USB mode to something else to see if it helps at all. The killed error leads me to believe that it simply can’t write to the setting to the device like it should. Other than that, I am really not sure what could help :(

http://www.facebook.com/lauraolivier88 Laura Olivier

My drivers are up to date, but it still won’t pick up my device. Something has worked on my phone however which gives me the option to move to sd card but when I do, I get prompted saying there isn’t enough memory….I have a 16gb sd card…plenty of memory!

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

Have you tried changing the USB mode on the phone to something else, to see if it’d be picked up? Essentially, if you can plug in your phone and browse its storage from within the OS, that’s when this trick should work. If you can do that and somehow the software still doesn’t manage to pick up the device, I’d recommend trying it on a different PC.

http://www.facebook.com/sharon.vonlumich Sharon von Lumich

I have tried to do this. I had loads of trouble actually installing the adt bundle…
But I finally managed, Now I’m not able to give my computer the prompts. Whenever and however I refer to the folder in which the adt is, the computer says this is an invalid promt and the folder cannot be found. I have also tried your solution with AppData, but this is where I get stuck. Could you help me out on this one?

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

Just to make sure, the command is “adb”, not “adt”. It seems like you’re not in the correct folder though. If you type in “dir” and don’t see adb, then you’re definitely in the wrong folder. It could be that the SDK installed to a different location than you’re expecting, so you may want to Ctrl + F and search your entire PC for adb.exe, then that should help you find the correct location to go in the command-prompt.

http://www.facebook.com/JBurkePE Jason Burke

I have a Verizon SCH-I200 running 4.0.4. I downloaded and executed the SDK with no trouble, but when initially running adb.exe, the list of devices was empty (even in debugging mode). I switched the USB mode to SUA (Software Upgrade Assistant), ran the autoinstall, unplugged the USB, then reinserted, selecting the regular media device. That allowed for the full connectivity. Just to be sure, I then rebooted the phone and ran App2SD.

Despite all this, the “Move to SD” button simply does not exist on my system. The first part of this may help someone who has connectivity problems, but it appears that 4.0.4 simply doesn’t allow this in an unrooted phone. For comparison, I also have a Galaxy S2 with 4.0.3, and it has moved applications in the native manager without trouble from the beginning.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

As mentioned in the article, there are certain things that -cannot- be moved, as their functions are built right into the OS. At the forefront is Facebook and Google Maps. Are those the programs you’re trying to move?

http://www.facebook.com/rishi.shukla Rishi Shukla

this is useful for Facebook apps?

http://www.facebook.com/hareesh.menon.94 Hareesh Menon

Life Saver.. Thanks a lot.. Neat Tweak

http://www.facebook.com/Tarekabouzayd Tarek Abou Zayd

Thanks alot for the great tweak. In fact i have a problem with my Samsung S Duos, it is running ICS but the move to sd card button is not visible even though sd card is mounted. Could you please help? Thanks in advance.

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

What app are you trying to move? As noted in the article, some apps cannot be moved even after this tweak (Facebook, Google Maps and some other Google apps).

http://www.facebook.com/Tarekabouzayd Tarek Abou Zayd

I tried so many apps but he problem is the move to sd card button does not even exist.

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

I looked that phone up and found the “S7562″ model, which has 4GB of internal storage. That’s not your phone? If your phone doesn’t have a Move to SD button like in this picture (even blacked out), it really does seem like your phone’s ROM restricted that ability for some reason. That’s not typical. At that point you’d likely have to root your phone and replace its entire ROM, but I’m unfortunately not the best person to go to for that.

http://www.facebook.com/Tarekabouzayd Tarek Abou Zayd

Unfortunately that’s my phone, i will try to contact Samsung Technical Support, may be there is a solution other than rooting. Thanks alot for your help and immediate response.

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

Good luck with it! Sounds like something is a bit off if you’re unable to even see that button. I’ve never encountered that before.

Karan Thakkar

Did you check with Samsung Technical staff? I am using the same phone and encountered the same problem.

Ivan

can some one help me ? i’ve downloaded the program instaled and I’ve set up mi divice to here good but when I tryed to open the adb file it opends just for a secund and then automatikli closees it selve . pls help me chuz i have only 5 apps and I’ve got onli 5 mb free space

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

You need to open a command-line as the article suggests. Hit Ctrl + R to open up a run line, and type in “cmd” without quotes and enter. Then follow all of the steps in the Step 3 section above.

http://www.facebook.com/razanjafry Razan Ali

How revert the tweak the default location back to 0.

Wisllay Vitrio

adb shell pm set-install-location 0

sessizciglik

why do we need to do that? what is the problem if we just leave it like that?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

All apps would try to install there, which might mean that problems could arise. Basically, you might be installing apps to the SD card that are not meant to be (they wouldn’t have the ‘move’ option). Way back in the day, this caused some simple problems for me, but mostly with widgets and things. It’s just generally best to put it back to 0, but your mileage may vary.

http://www.facebook.com/razanjafry Razan Ali

entering adb in the command box Open thousands of file what to do… have no idea please help?????

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

Are you certain that you’re accessing adb in the way this guide shows? You might want to try this out on another PC. adb shouldn’t access any files, only your phone. It certainly shouldn’t list thousands of anything.

http://www.facebook.com/tokkeboy Tom Torbeyns

Does it work with the S3 mini? (New to it, my space is already full)

http://www.facebook.com/tokkeboy Tom Torbeyns

(It’s Android 4.0 or later I guess…)

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

The steps in this article could be used for all versions of Android, to my knowledge. I’ve successfully done this to 2.x and 4.x devices.

http://www.facebook.com/pia.magnusson1 Pia Magnusson

Thanks for this, it really works! Those of you who doesn’t have a “move to sd” button just choose move to internal memory, since you have changed the default installation to “external” your app will end up on the sd card anyway. Brilliant!

LWW

Nice one, mate.

LWW

Quite a beautiful little trick you got here.
But I have a minor problem here, be glad if you could help: a few apps like Facebook, Maps, Adobe Reader, Play Store, YouTube still cannot be moved. Is there a workaround?
PS: All the apps mentioned above came installed with the phone. Just saying in case that changes things.

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

From the article: “Some software is considered to be integral and can’t be moved, and then there is other software like Facebook or Google Maps which you might not even use that can’t be moved without rooting the device.”

LWW

Oops, sorry. Read that as ”can be moved w/o rooting”. Thank you.

http://www.facebook.com/henric.lindborg Henric Lindborg

I am running a Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc and I just can´t get this to work. When I run the adb devices command it doesn´t list my device. It is properly connected and I have enabled usb debugging mode. Grateful for hints and solutions!

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

I’d try a different USB mode, or disable debugging. Though I’d say that if you could access the data on the phone when you plug it in, it SHOULD work. In the worst case you could try a different PC.

Kaustubh

I’m using Micromax A75, I tried both enabling & disabling debugging mode, my USB mode is active & I can view my files on my computer, but still my device isn’t listed in ADB Devices list…Pls Help…my internal memory is just 160mb n i so much want this fix to apply..

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Did you install the official drivers for the phone? As mentioned above, it might be worth testing it out in a different machine as well (if you’re familiar with Linux at all, it might be worth trying there as well since I don’t think the official drivers are explicitly needed).

manvi

hey..m using Sony xperia C…N i hav same problem regarding in built apps..what to do..

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You can’t move built-in apps. Your only option would be to root your phone, and I am not even sure if that’s guaranteed, unfortunately.

Evans Kipro

My htc legend cannot take pictures indicating ‘cannot be saved on SD card due to insufficient file permissions.” When i restart the phone the problem is temporarily solved only for it to emerge again.please assist

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

Is the device set to its default storage location?

adb shell pm setInstallLocation 0

I did this article using the HTC Legend and had no issues with photos.

http://www.facebook.com/mads.hedegaard2 Mads Hedegaard

Arrgh. Was so exited to be able to do this. But no. My Samsung Xcover, gingerbread 2.3.6 gets the message from SDK when on the cmd that I have no permission to set the install location to 2 ???

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

You might want to look into rooting the phone. That should clear that permission issue up. Also make sure that your microSD card is actually functioning If it isn’t, I could see that error occurring.

Haley Buck

Hey Rob. I have an LG Escape and i’m running 4.0.4.The install location is now set to 2, but the apps still save internally. help?

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

Here’s a potentially dumb question: is the microSD card functional? You might want to test out storage location 3 to see if it exists, or possibly 1. It really should work as 2 though.

http://www.facebook.com/chauncy.kent Chauncy Kent

I almost can’t believe this worked. This is about the 5th method I’ve tried and finally it did what it said it did. Great tweak! I was able to move Facebook, Google Voice, and Google Play Services on my Samsung dart and now I’ve got almost 40 MB free! It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s more than I’ve had in over a year.

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

Cheers, I am glad it worked!

http://www.facebook.com/mohsin.shahxad Mohsin Shahzad

Well I will say this method is perfect. As it worked for my Huawei Ascend Y201 Pro ICS 4.0.3 perfectly with no issues. Only the default google apps and launchers are not moveable but even i am able to move facebook and twitter like apps which always annoy me by their size and data gaining size.
Thanks to the author

http://www.facebook.com/deathspawner Rob Williams

I’m glad the article helped!

http://sup-production.com/ Razvan Chitu

Awesome. It worked on Sony Xperia Arc S ICS 4.0.4. Thanks a lot!

Tie Ee Zun

heyy i m using sony xperia arc s ics 4.0.4 too. when i enter the 2nd command which is adb shell pm get-install-location , why it shows me device not found ? help !

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Make sure the proper drivers are installed. The article has a link to the entire fleet of them. Alternatively, you could try a different PC and see if you have more luck.

Akif

Hi to All, I have Samsung Galaxy Gio GT-5660. I have done all steps, but yet the apps are not transfering to SD Card, and also new apps are coming direct to Internal Phone.

It could be that your phone simply refuses to allow this (some are like this), so your best bet would be to root the phone, which will allow you to even remove some other apps that the methods above wouldn’t allow (like Facebook).

Guest

Instructions follow karo ho jai ga yar! :D

Madison_Marie

Hello, my first problem is with the command prompt: the filepath on my computer is:

C:Documents and SettingsMyNameMy DocumentsDownloadsadt-bundle-windows-x86-20130729sdkplatform-tools but when I open my command prompt, this is already here automatically: C:Documents and SettingsMyName> enter the whole file path after this? what about that carrot after my name….I can’t erase it. Do I put a after the carrot? and, finally, the computer does not recognize the word “my” as valid even thought My Documents is part of the path. I have download everything I needed to, launched the sdk manager, downloaded the Google USB Driver and the Documentation for Android SDK (as instructed on a different site)… but am stuck at the command prompt.. Thank you in advance…my new Galaxy Precedent is cool and all, but my old flip phone never gave me a moment’s grief :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Your path might not be 1:1 with mine. You need to navigate to the “platform-tools” folder, and if you type in “dir” (no quotes) and see adb.exe listed, then you’re fine to run the command.

Madison_Marie

Rob, thanks for the quick reply… but can you please translate? I am competent, but not a techy.
I know exactly the path of the file:

1. although this file can only be found with this path, the prompt command won’t accept the word “my” (as in My Computer) as a valid entry.

2. When my command prompt first appears, this is what appears: C:Documents and SettingsMarlene>

I am unable to erase that and just start with C:

So… do I just add everything that comes after Marlene? and what about the carrot after my name…. I can’t remove that, but is seems as though a valid file path would have a backslash there rather than a carrot. (carat??)

Last but not least, if I finally succeed at entering that information, when I go to add ” adb shell pm getInstallLocation” it will be after “C:Documents and SettingsMarlene>” because I am unable to start at the C prompt.

http://techgage.com/ Jamie Fletcher

It’s windows not accepting a space as part of a directory, since it thinks you are trying to enter a parameter for a command. You can get around this by simply putting the entire path in quotes, i.e.

The caret should make no difference, since it’s a valid character under windows, although, it may not appear under Command Prompt, it’s still required to be an ê and not an e. However, since you are already in your user directory, the caret is used, you just can’t see it at the prompt.

Alternatively, you could move the platform tools directory to a different folder that’s more easily accessible via command prompt.

Lastly, some basic DOS command terminology. To change directory, you just “cd folderName”, this changes to a relative directory within the current folder. If you use “cd folderName”, this changes to an absolute folder on the current drive. Also useful is “cd ..” that changes directory up(or back) one level. If there are any spaces in the folder or file names, you need to enter the names within quotes, like I said above.

Let us know how you get on.

Madison_Marie

Jamie, Thank you…it worked! I took your first suggestion (just copied and pasted it right from your reply) and it worked the first time…. then I entered the next step commands. So, first I entered :

and voila…I was able to transfer over several apps to my sd card. What a great forum, thanks again for your help :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Excellent! I’m glad you got that settled :)

johndoe

hello!

I have a samsung gio gt 5660 android 2.3.6; I can’t root my phone; i’ve used your instructions but there’s no folder on my computer tu use after unpacking the zip file; ;i’ve tried to put in cmd the location from unzipped folder like C:UsersframDesktopadt-bundle-windows-x86-20130729adt-bundle-windows-x86-20130729sdkplatform-tools but when i write adb devices command no device is found;
please help!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It sounds like running adb worked just fine on account of the fact that it said “no device is found”, so the problem seems to be related to the USB connection. When you have your phone plugged in, can Windows detect it fine? Can you access the files? You’ll want to make sure that developer options are on for USB, and you might also need to change the actual USB connection settings since some vendors might default to a protocol that adb cannot be used with.

johndoe

When i connect my phone to pc (i have windows 7) windows detect it
immediately; i have no problems accessing my phone files whatsoever; if i
need to change my USB connection settings, how shall i do that;thank you!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It could differ by phone, because some vendors put an extra layer on top of things. Go into your Android settings and see if anything Samsung-related is listed in the main section, then explore that. If nothing USB-related is in there, you can find the “Connect to PC” options somewhere in there, or go into the Developer Options and enable USB debugging mode. I can’t tell you exactly where this is as I don’t have a 2.x device here any longer :S

Vendetta Vengence

Im still unable to move apps to SD card after these procedures

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Are you getting an error when you run the set-install-location command?

Vendetta Vengence

Thanks for replying so promptly. No error, but when I unplugged the device I’m still unable to move my apps

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You should plug the phone back in, and then run the get-install-location command to make sure the phone is in fact set to 2.

Given this article was written almost two years ago, a couple of details are out-of-date, but the steps should still work. I am going to go through it this evening and make sure I can reproduce all of the steps myself.

Vendetta Vengence

Thanks for the timely response. I love that Arsenal badge by the way, hope they put up a good fight this season

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Haha, thanks! Season is looking good so far. Just hope to avoid injuries ;-)

oscar

i have a problem with it
my android has a built in 4g memory and a 1g internal memory.
all my apps still saves at 4g built in and not my external sd card

the phone recognizes my built in sd card as the external sd card.
hope you guys could help me. thanks

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

When the phone is connected to the PC, you should run the get-install-location command and see what it tells you. It might say Auto or External, and if it’s not what you want, you could simply try setting a different number. In your phone’s case, you might have to set-install-location 1, but then be sure to run get-install-location afterwards to make sure it’s actually a usable location.

Morrison

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

Does these instructions also move app data? Like Chrome for Android’s annoying storage of profile data in /data/data/com.android.chrome/app_chrome/default, where (As I understand it), only root can access, but rooting your phone wipes this directory!

Also, do you know where of the Filesystem Android apps are stored?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

App data won’t be moved, so that does mean a little bit of data will still be hogging space on the phone until the app is uninstalled (in experience, this tends to be rather minimal). As for where the apps are actually moved to, I’m afraid I’m not sure. I’ve spent time in the past looking through the SD card when connected to a PC and couldn’t definitively figure it out. If you’re talking install locations on the phone itself, that I’m not sure, but root would be required to access the folder.

larasatiyoshi

My phone is Samsung GT-55360. I tried to connect it to my laptop but it won’t work. I tapped the Build Number 7 times but nothing happened, and it still won’t work. I searched for the MTP menu but didn’t find it. Please help me, my phone is so full (even after I uninstalled many things) and it won’t receive text message anymore! :(

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I believe that phone uses Android 2.x, so tapping the build number 7 times isn’t required (that’s new to 4+). So, a developer menu should be available from the main settings screen, and inside the option it’ll look like this:

If the developer menu is not available from the get-go, I am not sure what can be done about that, but I’ve never heard of a 2.x phone that didn’t have it there. As for MTP, the option might just be called “Disk Drive” or something like that.

larasatiyoshi

Thank you so much, but my laptop keeps saying “no device” even though I can open the SD card memory of my phone in my laptop as mass storage. For the device’s memory, I can’t open it in laptop, it says “The file or folder udi=/org/kde/solid/udev/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.2/usb2/2-1 does not exist.” Is my phone broken? :(

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That’s a bizarre error. You mean that comes up when trying to access the actual phone’s memory, not the SD card? I didn’t even know that was a possibility in such devices; it usually just mounts the external storage. Either way, are you sure you have the proper driver installed?

Yes, that’s what I meant. I don’t know, that error has existed for several months, but I didn’t really need to open my internal phone storage with laptop, and since I didn’t understand gadgets, I just let it be. I thought we simply can’t open internal phone storage in laptop, but I don’t think that’s the case anymore… About the driver, I think I’ve never modified it since I got my phone. Maybe product failure? Anyway, thank you so much for answering my questions, I will check my phone up :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

One thing that might help a little bit is using that Apps to SD app mentioned in the article to clear system-wide caches.

As for the driver, you might need it for Windows to interface with the phone properly. You might want to try this trick on another PC honestly, or if you are comfortable with Linux, you could try it there as well.

Tim

Hi, I have just got the sony xperia z1 and bought a rather costly 64gb micro sd card only to find out i cannot move Deezer (same as spotify; music streaming/offline mode app) to the sd card.
Is this tweak possible on the xperia z1 running stock android and if so, how do i do it?

Thanks,
Tim

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

“how do i do it?” I wrote an entire article above this comments section to explain that ;-) And yes, it should work no problem, since I did this on a phone in the same family.

rahul jaiswal

Hi Rob,

I ma having issues with installing the MTP USB Device driver for my Sony Eric. Xperia Pro, have ticked the developer option although but installation of the driver fails.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I hate to ask such a foolish question, but you are certain you are using “set” and not “get”? The get command would give a response like that; the set shouldn’t give output at all.

RealTalkRealTruth

I have a Motorola XT881. I performed this as instructed and was able to change the install location to SD. I confirmed that location. However, when I attempted to use App2SD in move apps I received a message stating the device’s primary external storage is emulated. I’m not overly techy so I guess I simply need to know is there a way around that?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

This might sound like a dumb question, but can you confirm that the microSD card is mounted and is working properly to begin with? By “emulated”, it almost makes it sound like it just doesn’t exist, so the OS is tricking itself to make it believe that a card is installed.

RealTalkRealTruth

I’m able to see my external and it is listed as such. However, no matter what I do, I still get the “emulated” message. I’ve seen from other posts that my phone isn’t the only model with this annoying problem. My theory is that is function was made to kinda save the phone user from him/her-self. A lot of users aren’t aware that moving some apps to sd may adversely affect that app. However, as a safety feature, most apps have disabled app to sd functionality, with only storage of the app’s data on the sd. Fortunately, Samsung has seen the error in it’s way and is fixing this feature. I’m hopeful that Moto will follow suit or I’m going old school and going with GS3 or GS4.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Thanks for the info; glad to hear that Samsung recognizes it’s not exactly ideal for everyone.

kyle trager

device not found. i enabled usb debugging. but it still flashes device not found. what shall i do now? a little help here

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Check the phone’s USB connection options, and make sure the proper phone drivers are installed. If you still don’t have luck, I’d recommend trying it on another PC.

kyle trager

i did tried it on another pc. but to no avail. i enabled usb debugging and it says no device found. i disabled it the second time and it still says no device found. i have a huawei ascend y200. i dont know any other usb connection options. this is getting frustrating. please help. :(

It’s a standard Android tweak, so it should work on all phones. There are some locked-down exceptions, but they are rare. Just give it a try :)

David Siegel

i downloaded the sdk and my computer wont allow it to come out of the zipped folder

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Are you using the extractor built into Windows? I’d recommend using 7-zip instead. Alternatively, you could make use of our download mentioned in the article.

David Siegel

i use win rar

Hrishi

Hi I am xperia sp user ….
I want to , is this process is applicable for my divice too please help me

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It’s an Android tweak, so it should be applicable to all devices.

Hrishi

Thanks for the help

disqus_cGNVZUz9Vx

nothing is showing up on my list of devices attached, how would fix that up? thanks

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Make sure you have the proper phone drivers installed, or try changing the phone’s USB connectivity options until one works. Alternatively you could try a different PC and see if you have better luck.

Umer Saleem

I have Android 4.04
Still i can’t move my facebook app …what to do :( ?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

From the article: NOTE: Even after applying the below tweak, some apps may still refuse to be moved over. In all likeliness, Facebook will be one of these. In this case, rooting your mobile device will be the only way to truly move or remove such an app.

You will need to root your phone if you want to move Facebook.

jorenz

help my phone appears in the computer as portable devices not as usb devices pls help thanks

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It’s fine if it shows up that way. It shouldn’t affect this tweak at all.

Vincent

what happens if you don’t revert default location back to 0?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

The world could implode, and it’d be entirely your fault.

Or, certain apps might not load or be able to function properly. Back in the day, I ran it at 0 for a while, and the phone didn’t just work that great afterwards, I had apps crash and such. The situation might be better today, but as a general rule you won’t want to install everything to the SD card, since the internal memory should be faster.

Vincent

Thanks Rob for the very quick reply (and for this great article).

However, I have encountered some problems. I followed the procedures as stated by you. But using the AppManager app you mentioned, it told me that “The device does not have a real primary external storage, or the primary external storage is emulated.” Then it does not allow me to move ANY app at all.

I’m using the new Xperia Z1. Any solutions in mind?

Cheers.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

App 2 SD is just a front-end that makes things convenient; the actual move process happens on Android itself. You might want to just go into the Settings section and then Apps of Android itself, and then move the same app and see if the same error occurs (I am betting that it will).

Someone else here mentioned the emulated problem, but they were using an entirely different phone and make, so at this point I’m oblivious to what the problem could be.

I’m almost wondering if emulated storage = 2 on certain devices and the -actual- SD card has become 3 or 1. I don’t have a device that gives me this issue, so I have no way of testing. You could try setting it to 3 or 1 and immediately running the ‘get’ command to see what it spits back, if it happens to be successful. For that matter, does adb tell you that the storage is emulated when you run ‘get’ after setting it to 2?

Why some vendors complicate such a simple thing is beyond me, but I’m hopeful there’s a legitimate reason for it.

Vincent

Setting to “3” doesnt work. It’s either “0”[Auto], “1”[Internal] or “2”[External]. Trying to move the apps via Settings>Apps does not work either. adb does not tell me that “2” is [Emulated].

I’m running out of ideas. And I do not plan to root my spankin’ new device just yet.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’d recommend creating an account and posting on the XDA Developers site:

While I’ve never encountered this emulated issue, someone on this site undoubtedly has, and might be able to help you. If you do end up finding out a solution, please do let me know. I almost wish I had a device that gave me this issue =/

Vincent

Thanks for trying.

I’ll let you know if I get anything from XDA.

marorun1982

Hello i also have the Sony Z1 and when i do the first command to check for devices its always not found.. Tryed to reinstall the drivers (uninstall , reboot , reinstall) tryed on two computer any idea why its do this? i really want to use my 64 gb sd card (i have got the fastest one around) plz help :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I need to look into this soon; a lot of people have had issues with that exact phone here. I am not quite sure at the moment what could be causing that, unfortunately.

vishal

Hello Friends,
any body help me to download Android ADB to my PC as i m unable to download it.

now here is the problem, there is no move to sd button beside clear data button or anything like it just a big clear data button laughing at me,what am i doing wrong here , even though i got right response from adb commands

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Like Facebook, it could be an app where its developers prohibit the app to be moved. Although I downloaded the app and it defaulted to the SD card, so I’m a little confused there (but it could be the fact that I’ve been switching from auto to external a lot).

If it downloads to the phone, you could always try A) Uninstalling the game B) Setting destination to 2 C) Redownloading the game. This will install it to the SD card by default, unless again, it’s prohibited.

Mark Abd El Missih

i do every steps ..but when i type second command : adb shell pm set-install-location 2
it reply by (0)auto .. can you advice me

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I don’t think I’ve heard of that before. Are you sure there’s a usable microSD card installed? If I had to guess, it’s telling you what the location is because it simply can’t set itself to 2. What phone do you happen to have?

Catherine

Hi, I recently moved some apps to my storage card to make some more space and now I can’t access them unless I’m using wifi! Whenever I tap to open one that has been moved to storage it says “app is not installed” but they are under the storage card. Could anybody help me out with this?
Thanks

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It sounds like the only solution here would be to reinstall the apps, or try moving them back to the phone and see if they work (my assumption is that they won’t). This sort of thing might happen when the phone is upgraded. Did you do anything significant like that on your phone recently?

oel

Finally it works! thanks

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Nice, glad it worked out :-)

http://www.shaz3e.com/ Shaz3e

I have Android Version 4.1.9 when type adb devices it says “list of devices attached” but when I type “adb shell pm get-install-location” or “adb shell pm get-install-location 0 [auto]” it says “error: device not found”, please help

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

adb is not detecting a device, else it would give a model. You should use the link in the article that brings you to the company drivers page, and try installing that, and / or try changing the USB settings on the device itself. If you can access your phone through your PC, as in, the file system, adb -should- work.

Shannon Jones

I have gone through the steps as you have listed. When I get to the step of adb shell pm getinstallLocation it tells me unknown command. What am I doing wrong? And I have tried the commands both ways. With and without the dashes. My device is running android 4.0.4 ICS. Any help would be appericated.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

adb shell pm get-install-location

That is the command needed for Android 4+. If for some reason it still gives the unknown command error, it means you are not inside of the same folder as adb.exe in the command prompt, so you need to make sure that’s the case.

Shannon Jones

Okay I finally got the commands to work. It’s shows the location as 2[external]. So now here is my new diellima, absoutly none of the apps will give the option to move to the sd card. I’m doing this on my daughter’s Nabi Jr. Any advice?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Have you tried to run the App 2 SD tool? That will build a list of apps that can be moved over to the SD card, so if nothing appears there, then it might mean that the phone is locked-down in some regard. If an app does appear there, then it might mean those select apps are locked-down.

You might just want to download an app from the screenshot I have in the article where it shows what can be moved, if there is even that much space. If you can’t move an app that’s seen in my screenshot, then this seems to be a device limitation.

No one can predict that sort of thing. It’s a basic Android tweak, so it’s rarer for it to not work than for it to work.

Dev RockZz

if i use this tweak , i will
End up Voiding Phone’s Warranty?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

No, this is an official Android tweak. It’s built into the operating system.

Dev RockZz

ok , then lets try this , i dont think any one before me has tried on xperia m dual ? ,and ur rar file is not working so downloading full SDK, and if everything goes wel will post u and if not i will need u , thanks for replying so interactively .

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It’s not a RAR file, and it is in fact working :P (I tested with the built-in archiver in Windows and also 7zip). Sorry you have to go the route of downloading the entire SDK. Good luck!

Dev RockZz

when i am extracting it it is showing winRAR diagnostics message in that
cannot execute file

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’m not sure what the issue is, but I’d recommend using 7-zip for archiving purposes. It’s free and tends to work when either WinRAR or Windows’ built-in archiver does not.

Dev RockZz

all ur procedure worked but no effect i downloaded the App 2 SD 39 files i can transfer but on SD CARD it was writing that the device does not have real primary external storage or the primary external storage is emulated

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Oy, that problem again. That might not be able to be worked around, although I have no experience to back that up. Some here have reported the same issue, and one mentioned that one vendor was working to patch it up. Sorry, but at this time I am not quite sure how to fix that. I truly wish I had a device on-hand that gave me the same issue. It might be worth hitting Google up to investigate further.

Dev RockZz

So how i will root my sony Xperia m dual(c2004) ?? any help will be appreciable

I can’t validate how well it works, but judging by the comments, it’s fine.

PGuedes

I followed the steps and its set to 2: external Storage (29 GB free) and when i try to install some app i got insuficient storage :(. I can copy other files to micro sd card, i cant install there. Any tips.

Thx

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You should not have the device set to storage #2 all the time, since that can cause issues (as mentioned in the article). It’s ideal to set it to 2 only when you actually need to move the apps over.

Xenovia

asus fenopad
can use this..!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It’s worth giving it a shot.

Ashish

Very Nice.. Worked for me in first attempt.. :)

Darshan Oswal

How to move facebook n bbm app…
its not working in my sony live with walkman…

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Facebook cannot be moved, as stated in the article, and I assume BBM is the same, given it’s another IM client. To forcerably move it, you’d need to root your device (and even then you might need to do other things in order to actually get rid of it).

utkarsh kumar

Hey bro After doing this…everythin gwas sucessful
I am not able to move any apps….but in apps 2sd it is hsowing the movable apps………..sony xperia m dual ……what to do.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If something is in the “Movable” pane, it -should- be movable. Is there enough free space on the SD card? I’ve never encountered this issue.

As mentioned in the article, some apps can’t be moved, but those apps won’t appear ever in the movable section.

utkarsh kumar

yeah 12.20 gb bro plzz help according first step i download file and did everything as u said and in cmd lastly it was showing location is 2 external but still i am not getting any option….to move to sd…in apps2 sd so many apps are movable but still i cant move..iam using sony xperia m dual..4.2.2…help plzzzz

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

What error does it give, exactly? Does it mention something about the storage being emulated? It might be worth signing up on the XDA-Developers.com site and posting under the Sony Xperia forum, since others might have encountered this issue.

I have no idea what it would cost to unbrick your phone, but since it’s a newer model I wouldn’t recommend trying to root it right away. Also make sure that you are not storing music or other big data on you phone’s storage, because that phone comes with 4GB… you shouldn’t run out -that- quickly for apps.

sumer

sir i have brought xperia m dual c2004 jelly bean 4.2.2 build version 15.2.A.1.12 . 1 week ago and user available memory is only 1.8 gb in which many apps are pre loaded so memory goes down to 1.2 gb in which we have to install games and apps. so games like nfs most wanted and asphalt 8 can’t be installed. so is there any way to install these games to sd . and i have read many things about this phone one is that sony has removed the option of move to sd. so plz find way to install those games thanks

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Games like those tend to be unmovable to the SD card because the developers insist on the data files being stored on faster storage – which would be internal. You could -try- to set the location to 2 as seen in the post, and then install the app fresh. That MIGHT install it straight to the SD card, but success will be hit-or-miss.

sumer

but sony has removed option of installing apps to sd

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If so, then it seems like the only solution is to use a custom ROM, which is not a solution at all. That’s a ridiculous move my Sony if it affects its entire future lineup.

smaaaq

after doing all steps, some apps moves but same facebook & Skype not moveable into sd card & when new installation of Facebook, fb install into same internal storage, :(

kanhaiya

same problem as utkarsh kumar

Neeraj

Fantastic Rob ! it worked on my Galaxy POP

kanhaiya

hey i have xperia L….i have done whatever you
said.Everything went fine,but still i am not able to move apps to
external sd..my fone internal is divided into 2 parts 1)phone
memory2)internal memory….the app manager doesn’t show move to external
option

Rakananda Adinata

Still wont work with my acer v370 Jellybean 4.2.2
do i have to reinstall the apps?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Which part won’t work, exactly? Bear in mind that some apps might not be movable even after this tweak, as mentioned in the article.

Sven Prevrhal

Oh the simplicity! Works as advertised ;-) on a Sony Xperia Arc/S with CM10.2 – Thanks!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Glad to hear it!

Harsh P Waghela

sir, in my xperia sp , as shown in the pic above in tutorial , there is no option (button) to “move to sd card” which is at the right of clear cache as shown above. what can be the possible solutions for this? my android version is 4.1.2.
thanx in advance

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If able, could you screenshot what it looks like, and just embed it into a fresh comment here? I’ve never seen that sort of thing before. It REALLY sounds like a limitation that the vendor took away if the option is quite literally not there, because it’s an Android default option. It really should be there on every single Android device with an SD slot ever released.

Renzo Canare

Just a quick note:

If you’re running on a Sony phone, I suggest you download Sony PC Companion and install the drivers from there (It should automatically do so for you). It worked on my Sony Xperia Arc S and I was finally able to find my device.

Harsh P Waghela

Sir in reference to previous conversation
And another problem is that memory is emulated.
I wanted to ask if I made all the space of my sd card as an ext4 partition wil it store music n stuff?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Even if the storage is emulated, it should still show the “Move to SD” option. I’ve -never- seen anything like what you show in your screenshot. Out of curiosity, did you already format the SD card to a different than standard partition? Because if so, that might have something to do with it. You’ll always want to format the memory card from within Android itself (if you do it later, make sure to copy all of the data off of it to your PC first).

shaik asif

i tried the codes provided in the above post on my xperia neo L but it didnt work

any help??

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Was there an error?

shaik asif

no i even tried the getInstallLocation command it shows 2(external) but my apps wont move to SD card nor the new apps are getting installed on external memory.
what to do now??

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Be sure that you’re trying to move an app that can actually be moved. Facebook and some others can’t. I’d recommend installing Google Drive or Google Calendar when the phone is set to 0, and then set it to 2 and see if whichever one you chose can be moved. If it’s set to 2, and you have mounted storage, you should be able to move most apps.

smaaaq

plz share Facebook & Skype trick for moving into sd card

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

The article mentions that Facebook cannot be moved, and I assume Skype is no different. The reason is that these are messaging apps, and storing them on the external storage could cause some serious issues.

Harsh P Waghela

no sir, i have never formatted or partitioned my sd card. it is sd card of the company strontium nitro 32 gb UHS. neither does the same option appear on my friend’s xperia sp. is it the case with android 4.1.2 sir? or is it sony? will i get a solution for the problem?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’d recommend formatting the card and seeing if that helps the problem. You can find the option in the Storage menu. You’d want to first connect the phone to a PC and get the data off of it though. Then after the card is erased, connect again and copy the data back over.

sourav

hey i m try it in sony ericsson live with walkman but when i type the command which is adb it shows windows cant find adb n i m using win 8…….
plz help me…….

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You must be in the wrong folder in the command line. You might just want to copy adb.exe and every other file in that folder to a new folder on the C: drive called adb. The path would be C:adb, so you’d get there by typing in “cd C:adb” in a command prompt, without quotes.

sourav

i hav tried for so many times but its showing c:program’ is not recognized as an internal or external command,operable command or batch file.
plz helppp….

sourav

ohhhh unbeliveable it worked after along effort…….thanks a lot

sourav

now no need to buy new phone becoz of internal storage problem

sourav

some apps moved but still some apps such as bbm,facebook,gmail,adobe reader were unable to move……..

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Yes, that’s mentioned in the article. Not all apps will be movable because their developers marked it in the code as such. Rooting the phone might help move them over -anyway-, but that’s never a solution I’d recommend since it risks damage to the phone’s software.

sumon

Can i use it pipo max m6 tab… tell me please. .

mujahid

it worked thanks i really solved my problem with this help

SonnyG

Does not work on ICS. Samsung Galaxy Tab 3

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Was there an error, by chance?

Mahesh

have set default loaction to ma sd card but apps on my phone are still unmovable..
pls help… my phone xperia m dual android 4.2.2… and the apps menu doesnt show move to sd card option

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

This is a known issue. Apparently Sony removed the ‘Move to SD’ option on this phone, so the best thing to do is complain. Consumers have a right for that option to exist.

Mahesh

Yup…Will register my complaint… Thank You..

Mahesh

i have done and set default location to 2 but whatever i download from play store not installing at all. showing error:402.. m using xperia m dual
please help me

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

As I mentioned above, Sony has disabled the function of being able to install directly to the SD card. So when you change to “2”, the phone has nowhere to install it. You’re out of luck unless Sony changes that design, I’m afraid.

Which phone? Generally when there is an option to move to phone storage, it’s because the app is already on the SD (the option Move to SD becomes Move to Phone after the move).

Camilla Jackson

something weird has happened. I have moved all movable apps to SD card, using the above method.

In ‘file manager’ it says that I now have 1015.8 MB of available space and 1.5 GB on the SD card.

However, when I look in ‘settings’ > ‘storage use’, it says that I only have 44 MB on internal memory.

Is there something that I am missing?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That’s bizarre, and not something I’ve encountered before. I’d just keep with it and see if it becomes a problem, or see what happens when more is installed to the internal memory (it could be that the phone is reading the storage wrong, or the symbolic links as native storage… it’s just hard to say). Maybe a phone reboot would clue it in?

sumon

Can i use pipo max m6 tab

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It’s impossible to predict this. It’s a free solution, so give it a go :-)

Abhijit Deb

everything done, location changed to 2. but not a single application can b moved, no option. sony xperia M…. any solution ?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That phone has disabled the Move to SD function. Fire your cannons at Sony.

http://www.techanger.com/ Aamir Rizwan

Move to SD is disabled on this phone but will the new apps be installed on SD card?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I truly have no idea. If the phone has an SD card and the phone is set to 2, it should install there, but it’d be challenging to verify (you might just be able to plug the SD card into a PC after-the-fact and take a look, though I am unsure of where the actual data would be installed – that’s something I should look into).

M V A N O

For a minute there you had me feeling like an IT genius :-), I did everything right but still unable to move the applications. I’m using a Samsung GT-B5510. Please help

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Is there an error? Which step of the process is the roadblock?

Prateek Rastogi

Hi, I have Sony Xperia M with android version 4.1.2. I completed all the steps mentioned above successfully, and the ‘ adb shell pm get-install-location’ command is showing its result as 2[external].

But still, when I am going to apps in my phone, the option of ‘Move to SD card’ is not available. Is this method not working for Android 4.1.2?? Is there any other way to enable ‘move to sd card’ option in Xperia M??

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Unfortunately, that phone has had its Move to SD option removed. I highly recommend contacting Sony support about it, since it’s an option that should not have been taken away (it’s a user right to have it, as far as I’m concerned).

Epistol

no more info about it ?

Jonatan666

i contact sony support but they dont know own products …i ask them how to move for example skype application into SD card they had 48hours for answer but they didnt :-D sony looks like crap they sell garbage phones i will chose another poduct in the future no more sony is just a waste of my money cause i expect this feature when all other androids since ICS have it

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’m really sorry to hear that, truly frustrating =/ It doesn’t REALLY surprise me that Sony support wouldn’t listen. I’d love to know why they removed the feature… it makes no sense whatsoever from this end. I hope it’s not a sign that other companies will go the same route.

Jonatan666

not even only on smartphones i got some bad experience with my PS3 console where store is not able to use in my country and they promise to will be able actaly they promise 6years ago …..so i decide …this xperia M was last sony product what i got probably

Kiara

Hi, I also have a Sony, mine is xperia Z. I also managed to do all the steps successfully but only a few apps appeared as movable. The most HUGE ones like Facebook, Chrome and Google+ (which can’t be deleted u_u) still appear as non movable :(

I even tried changing the command to location 1, but that didn’t change anything. Any ideas what I could do next?

Jonatan666

you shuld try to root your phone and then put some cyanogenmod rom cause they have this ability and xperia Z is phone what can be officialy supported from cyanogenmod team, in this days i have huawei G750 and there is option to change SD card as internal storage so i have 32gb free space without “full memory” icon always visible on notifications :D so if i buy new phone in the future this is rule to have this option :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Most apps that come pre-installed can’t be moved, unfortunately. As Jonatan666 said, you’d have to root the phone to change that, or use an entirely different ROM (like Cyanogen).

Kiara

hmm… the biggest ones I can’t move are Chrome and Facebook, of which Chrome did not come preinstalled. And my Chrome is somehow ~240MB :(
Oh well, I’ll look up this Cyanogen thing, thanks! :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Chrome might be one of those unique apps that refuses to be moved even so. Developers as far as I’m aware can design their apps to ignore that setting, because they want to ensure their apps run at full performance all the time. I feel your pain, it’s frustrating.

Jonatan666

240mb have cause you use it and you have to clear cache memory on app so you clean some mb

qwertyuiop

So that means whatever I do it can’t get the option enabled. Well… sad because I don’t know how to work with this storage mess. I can’t even update official updates because the internal storage is insufficient.. I’m using Xperia C btw

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If that phone can update to 4.3 or perhaps even 4.2, you might get that option back. I learned this might not be a device-specific issue, but an Android-specific issue, where the option was removed during 4.1 and 4.2 (I think it was those).

pdxesto

I have a Samsung Galaxy Stellar (SCH-1200), also with Android 4.1.2, and I see the same problem – absolutely no sign of a “Move to SD card” after setting install location to 2. Is this lack of move capability an Android thing or a manufacturer thing or a service provider (e.g. Verizon) thing? I can see manufacturers or service providers doing this so that a user will outgrow their phone and need to upgrade as soon as possible.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I think that lacking ability is the fault of that Android version, based on what I’ve heard from others here. Are you unable to upgrade your phone to 4.2? I believe that’s the version that returned the option.

pdxesto

Thanks for still monitoring and responding to posts to your article!
I’m pretty sure I’m out of luck wrt. an Android update from Verizon, and I don’t want the hassle of rooting the phone and diddling with the system to allow move to sdcard. The Stellar was an entry-level phone, not much support from Samsung and Verizon, I’m not a power user, and I’ve been able to do enough cleanup of the internal flash to have some headroom for app updates and such. My wife’s Galaxy S3, on the other hand, is now at Android 4.4.2, and has a fully functional ‘move to sd’ capability without any mods.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

The only real upside to that phone is that it starts off with 1.5GB of free space. The phone I used in this article had a painful half-gig or something like that. Now I am using a Moto G, and while it doesn’t have an SD slot, it at least avails a decent amount of storage from the get-go.

I am kind of surprised 8GB isn’t completely standard nowadays.

As for the Android limitation, I have never been able to figure out why the option was removed, but apparently it happened in versions I never had to use it with. I thought it spanned two major versions, but it might have just been 4.2.

asd_pp

you solve the problem yet? i have the sony xperia m

Jonatan666

i had luck only to change location with root and command as is up here but after each restart you have to make command again so i save commands in txt file in phone and copy paste to terminal app….but after few restarts i leave this phone to my mother rather :D even after update root lost but when i had SD card as internal changed i was able to play some great games like dark knight, order and chaos, need for speed most wanted and so …. but without this i had no chance to download games because low memory…i wonder how hadr is for sony make some boot comand to keep this memory changed or add option change Sd card as internal in settings like huawei g750 what i have

Niranjan Panse

hi,
very basic query…
moving app is phone dependent(android) feature or that particular app dependent..?(coz i tried “move 2 SD” on my Galaxy Trend and it did not allowed me to move anything

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

As mentioned in the article, some apps might not be movable after this tweak is applied. If -no- apps ever are, then it might appear that the tweak was used incorrectly (if you have an error of some sort, please let me know).

Pro Sultan

hey bro,,,thank u alot,,it works on my Sony Xperia Arc S ICS 4.0.4,,,,,,,,,but not al the apps like power saver,calender,google+ etc have been moved,,only google play service and whatsapp and 2 other apps have been moved,,so do u have any solution 4 this??!!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Are you saying that Google Calendar appeared to be moved, but didn’t actually move? Or am I misunderstanding? I never had an issue with Calendar or Google+.

Pro Sultan

nope they haven’t appeared to be moved(calender,google+,etc),,,,only google play sevice and whatsapp have appeared to be moved ;)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Are you able to run the ‘get’ command and make sure that 2 is printed back? It seems like the tweak just didn’t work or something. Or, you might want to try one of the apps listed in the screenshot above (Chrome would be a good one) with the phone set to 0, and then set it to 2 and see if it could be moved.

Pro Sultan

aaaah,,,i tried all the steps again,,,,and it really works,,,i can now move chrome and blackmart and the othersss,,,,thanks again brooo

naman

will this work for samsung galaxy quattro / win, galaxy grand and sony c??

It’s a free and safe trick, so there’s no harm in trying. It’s impossible to know if it works until you try it. The Sony might be kind of iffy if it’s a recent phone, since Sony has removed the move to SD option on select models.

naman

ohh so tht means if the phone has “move to SD“ option by default only then this trick will work right??

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It should be listed there even if it’s not possible to use it, like in one of the screenshots in the article. But as far as I’m aware, your Sony phone -never- has that option.

http://promotebangla.blogspot.com Saurav Chatterjee

Hey, It Worked Perfectly, Thanks For the Elaborate Description. Really Helpful :-)
Now i have 700 MB of Free Space in my Internal Memory m/
HTC Desire V , has become really smooth.. :-)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Nice, glad to hear it!

Obi-Wan Empire Odogwu

works well. For samsung S4 though, i needed to download the latest driver here first

Hey Rob, just wondering if I can do this method to my Chinese android phone which is a 2.3.4

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Yes you should be able to no problem, but it might require the different syntax as mentioned in the article (“adb shell pm getInstallLocation”).

Stan

Hi Rob, thanks very much for the detailed instructions. Your instructions were really good and the change of location worked on my Samsung Xcover 2. I donwloaded AppMgrIII after that but it still got installed onto the internal memory. Also, i get the ‘unable to emulate…’ error and, the ‘Move to SD Card’ option is not even visible on my screen as an option even though the app is listed as movable with AppMgrIII. I know that on some versions of your screenshots, the ‘move to SD card’ option is simply grayed out, but it doesn’t even appear on my screen.

The phone is running 4.1.2 XXAMB5 and KIES has not detected any newer updates. However, i read that upgrading this to XXAME1 instead would enable the feature of the ‘Move to SD Card’ option reappearing. Do you know if this is true, or even if XXAME1 is newer than XXAMB5?

Thanks.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I somehow missed this comment. I am not familiar with that phone, is it newer? As mentioned in some other comments, Sony’s latest phones don’t have the “Move to SD” option, as the company deemed it unnecessary, seemingly, and so I’m wondering if Samsung is going down the same path.

As for that update, I am not sure to be honest, as I am very unfamiliar with that phone or even series. If the update doesn’t actually hurt anything, it’d be worth giving a shot. Is that an after-market ROM or something? Maybe the community added in what Samsung removed.

Neal Headlee

Just tried this on my Samsung Galaxy Centura and it did not work

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Did the tweak apply correctly, or is there another issue?

Neal Headlee

I believe so, I changed the location from 0 to 2 but none of my apps have the move to as card button in the settings.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You might be experiencing the same issue others are, where that option doesn’t exist even without this tweak. That’s the fault of the company, and I’m still trying to figure out why that’s the case. If you can use the “get” command and it spits back 2, then you applied the tweak correctly. At that point you’d need to use a custom ROM or something to get the functionality back.

If I had to guess, companies believe microSD performance to be too lackluster versus internal storage (which is true), so they might just not want to give people the option (a foolish reason if so).

Ibtesam Ikram

I tried with my alcatel one touch it shows error(permission denied)

Ibtesam Ikram

I tried again but it shows this error now…what will i do?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You’ll note at the bottom of the first big blurb in that command prompt that it asks you to use “setInstallLocation”, rather than set-install-location. Likewise, you could use “getInstallLocation” to double-check that it’s set properly.

Chris Thomas

i need 32bit adt-bundle-windows

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I didn’t realize I uploaded the 64-bit version. The 32-bit can be had here:

At first, I had no idea on how to do it. It took me two days to finally understand what is it all about. Thank you so much, it helped me a lot :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’m glad it helped!

Latasha Nicole Garrett

this is all confusing to me lol can somebody help me please

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

What part are you having trouble with, exactly?

Lacerda Adrecal

OMFG, thanks a lot man!!!! x’D
we love ya!!!

asd_pp

I have sony xperia M!!! why this dosen´t work !!!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

This is a limitation of that particular phone, and can’t be worked-around unless Sony fixes it. You’d likely have to root the phone and use a custom ROM to get the option back.

Robert

Hi, I just successfully went through this process and moved some apps to the sd card, but the actual app does not move. (For example, Injustice takes just over 1 gb of space, but when I moved it to the sd card, less than 5 mb of data was actually on the sd card while over 1 gb was still on the phone.) Did I just misunderstand what this was supposed to do, or did I do something wrong? It seems pointless to force the app to say it can move if it still can’t move.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Big games like that can be a little bit different, because the developers insist on keeping the game stored on the faster storage (I deal with the same thing on NVIDIA SHIELD). The 5MB you moved is just the base files for the game, while the 1GB on the side is the actual content, which the developers don’t want you to move. I need to look at this in more detail in the future, because maybe it IS possible to move the entire thing, but I’m just not aware of it.

Anirban Goswami

Worked for my Galaxy Y S5369, thanks!

Alberto

Hi, Have you got any soluctions for this? My computer can’t see my phone! thanks a lot

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Did you install the official device drivers?

jeff lovelace

Anyone figure out what causes the killed bit

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

What are you referring to, exactly? That doesn’t ring a bell.

DaFynestRican

I was trying this method using an android tablet, considering that aside from it not being an actual android phone all the other options are there. Im having the same space issue. However when I type in adb devices, nothing shows up. Can you help me?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Is USB debugging enabled on the device? And are you able to access the storage on that memory card when the tablet is plugged in?

Crow

Hm I followed everything exactly. It didn’t seem to work. The command prompt gives me a list of every variable for the specific commands but doesn’t actually seem to run the command itself. I’m using an LG L3 e400 Optimus

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That means the command was input incorrectly. I believe that phone has Android 2.x, so be sure to use the appropriate command:

adb shell pm getInstallLocation

Cyril Samuel

Hey, I did everything it was said and changed the location to 2..Some of the apps that could not be moved previously could now be moved but for some apps the move to SD card is still grey in color .why is that ???

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

As mentioned in the article, some apps can’t be moved even with this tweak. Most notable is Facebook. To get around that you’d likely need a custom ROM or at the very least, root (I am not sure off-hand if root would actually help though).

The article mentions that Facebook can’t be moved, and I guess BBM would be the same because it’s a messenger. Messengers basically integrate with the OS so the developers make it impossible to move them.

tr3d1nt

Hi, im sorry but i dont know if it worked. I am using a Dell Venue 7 tablet and recently purchased a micro sd card. But after this tweak, i did not get the option “move to sd card” with my apps, so can you tell me what this tweak does, also i tried using “App 2 Sd” app but i got error ” The device does not have a real primary external storage, or the primary external storage is emulated” so can you explain to me what this means, or does my tablet not support SD card function? PLEASE HELP!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Is the “Move to SD” option not even there, just faded out? If so, then it seems as though Dell disabled the option. Is the storage working, though? I think that emulated error can come up with no storage is plugged in. It’s an error I’ve been meaning to look into.

tr3d1nt

The “move to SD” option is not there, and my SD card is working because when i go to the storage Options the Sd card is there. And using Arc File manager i found my sd cards folder it is labeled “sdcard_ext” and to test it out i put some files in it and went to settings and the memory of the sd card decreased meaning the SD card is working. So Dell disabled the option i guess. But what does “emulated Storage” mean?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I believe it means that the OS is tricking itself into believing that external storage doesn’t exist; instead, it mounts the storage to act like internal storage. It’s bizarre. You might want to hit-up Dell’s community forums and complain about the option not being available, because it should be (as far as I’m concerned).

tr3d1nt

K thanks for the fast replies il post what they tell me here.

Nithin

Thanks a lot . I was able to move Whatsapp to SD card which was taking a huge amount device memory.(Lenovo A60+ Gingerbread)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Great to hear, glad it worked :)

Ravi Pahwa

Whenever i type the command of adb devices or any other it shows adb is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable file or batch file
Plz help…

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That implies that you’re in the incorrect folder. In the file manager, go to the folder that has adb in it, and then while holding Shift, right-click a free spot in the folder, and you’ll see “Open command-line here” or something to that affect. Then you can use your adb command.

Ravi Pahwa

Again the same problem plz help…

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You downloaded the Linux version of the SDK ;-) Here’s a direct URL to the Windows version:

You also might need to adjust the USB debugging settings, and perhaps also the mode. If worse comes to worst, you might just want to try it in a different PC, since some can be stubborn with drivers.

Shaun Rowe

Can some one Help me please i am trying so hard to move apps to my SD card on my Samsung Galaxy Fame S6810P on 4.1.2 JellyBean and i have rooted it and not one app i have tried will work and the fame only has a poor 4gb space please help

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Is the “Move to SD” card visible? See the screenshot above that shows movable apps? You might want to download one of those and see if it happens to be movable. If not, there’s something else at play.

Shaun Rowe

Hi Rob no the Move to Sd option is not even there

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Then that’s the same sort of issue Sony Xperia M users are dealing with. If the option is not there, it’s because the vendor removed it. As far as I’m aware, the only way to get around this is to use a custom ROM. The company should definitely be bitched at though, because if the device has an SD card slot, it should have that option when storage is plugged in.

Jonatan666

i recommend sel this phone and never buy cat in a bag from sony :) only option is root and remove warranty SDK tools not working and sony are careles …bad experience start since i buy PS3 and they absolutly where careless about store in my country …so now i sa no more phones from sony cause they dont care …i want company what dont make you pay “big” money for phone and then you realize your phone is garbage and you cant expect all what you did…who can cheat you with 4gb internal memory and then you realize 2gb is for system 2gb for apps and SD card is not usefull …who care pictures videos and music….i want use SD card for for example asphalt 8 game what need 2gb storage only or files and you cant use SD card ……like i say sell this garbage and buy another but not from sony :) and before you buy check if have this feature before :P

Santosh Mishra

Any solution for Move to SD option for xperia M?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Unfortunately, not that I’m aware of. Sony disabled the feature on that phone for some reason. Your only option would be to use a custom ROM, but that’s hardly an ideal solution.

Joseph Perez

First of all, thank you for this; I’m very excited to try it! Quick question though: I have a Monster M7 tablet with Android 4.1.1 and, like another person who has commented, my storage is broken up into “Internal” drive and internal “NAND Flash.” Also, I do not have an
external SD card installed as of now. APPMGRIII notes this “NAND Flash” as “Internal SD”. I am interested in moving my apps to the “NAND Flash” as of now. So my question is: Is the #2 install location specifically for an EXTERNAL SD card? If so, should I set it as #1? Thanks!

Joseph Perez

edit: APPMGRIII notes the “NAND Flash” as “SD CARD”

Joseph Perez

I’m also noticing that when I set the tablet to USB debugging mode, my PC no longer has the drivers for the device, and therefore I cannot find the device with “adb devices.” The Google USB driver suggested by the Android developer site didn’t work. Think this tablet is just too new?

Ahmed

thanks At last i can move apps to sd card

Raven Lee

i’d follow all the steps, but still doesn’t work.. using alcatel one touch glory 2s.. any idea?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

What part isn’t working exactly, the inability to move something to SD, or the command-line tweak itself?

Raven Lee

the command seems ok, but the “move to SD card” in my phone still not applicable for some apps (such as touchpal keyboard)..
one more question, when connecting my android to the laptop, should i mount it?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

As the article states, some apps won’t be movable. In particular, apps that are pre-bundled with the device likely won’t be movable; instead, apps you download direct from the Play Store should be (though again, some developers restrict moving their apps… at that point a rooted + different ROM might be needed to fix that).

Also no need to mount the drive when plugged into a PC, it should “just work”.

Randall Powell

Thanks for the great article. I have used this fix to move 200MB+ of apps and data to my SD card.
I am also using ‘App 2 SD’ to move apps to the SD card. However, in looking at your screenshots, I see a number of Google’s bloatware apps in your list of moveable apps that do not show up in mine (i.e. Google+, Drive, etc.). I would like to move a number of these apps to my SD card but do not seem to have that option.
Did I miss something? Or, is the an inherent difference between phone manufacturers that might preclude me from moving the Google bloatware I don’t really use? I am using an LG Optimus F6 running Android 4.1.2.
It would be great to be able to move some of these unused apps, if possible. I would really like to free up space for more productive apps that I might wish to add in the future. Any suggestions?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Were those apps pre-installed, by chance? If so, that’s probably why… they’re effectively locked into the base OS so I am assuming pretty much -anything- stock won’t be movable (which is probably the big reason Facebook can’t be moved either).

Randall Powell

Yes, they were. Bummer. I’m not ready to root my phone just yet, so I guess I will just suck it up for now. Thanks again.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That’s really unfortunate… I know the frustration well =/

Tuomas Paasiala

Works with SonyEricsson Xperia arc s with ICS :) Can not move preinstalled programs, Facebook etc, but got about 100mb more empty space to internal memory by moving games and other apps. Thanks :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Good to hear!

vinod

hi rob. need help with platform tools. the file in the link downloads but during extraction appears as broken. please help with ‘platform tools’ foe windows 7…using a dell xcd 35. thanks. by the way. the tweak worked earlier on samsung s4.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’d recommend extracting it with the free tool 7-zip, as the built-in extractor in Windows is bugged for some reason (not exactly a new revelation… it’s always been hit-or-miss).

Brian Fong

somehow the zip file extraction only work with 7-zip. My winzip gives me all kind of error ….

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I once tried archiving the folder with the built-in Windows tool, but that gave issues as well. I really don’t get it. 7z is the only archiver that’s been reliable for me.

There’s no need to root at all, which is why this tweak is so user-friendly (well except for those using devices where the vendor disabled the Move to SD setting…)

Kaustubh

I’m using Micromax A75, I tried both enabling & disabling debugging mode, my USB mode is active & I can view my files on my computer, but still my device isn’t listed in ADB Devices list…Pls Help…my internal memory is just 160mb n i so much want this fix to apply..

bluz

will this app work on galaxy core gt-i8260?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

There’s no harm in trying ;-) It’s a non-destructive tweak, so all you risk is time. It’s hard to predict whether it’ll work or not. If you have a “Move to SD” option available at all, it should.

bluz

i dont have that option move to sd available. i tried it but it doesn’t work for me. :( do you think if i root my phone this thing will work?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If the option is not there at ALL, then rooting the phone wouldn’t work because the problem is built into the ROM. If the option is there but faded out, then that means that application can’t be moved, but others should be able to. You’d need a custom ROM to restore the option if it’s not there, but that’s not a path I’d recommend investigating unless the phone is past its warranty period (and the process is not risk-free).

ohhh…it meanss i’ve to install new chat app…i was v much familier to watsapp…n i dont wnt to install new chat app…plz if u have any other idea to use watsapp on my phonee..than plzz do tell me…thankk u 4 ur quick n nice responce

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’m sorry – I’m unable to help. I am not familiar with that phone or platform at all, it’s totally separate from Android from what I can tell. I’d recommend using Google to get some ideas.

neural neptune

hi there….
great article but i am facing a problem, it was working fine over desktop but on laptop commond prompt showing error.

error: more than one device and emulator.
please help me out to solve it.
thanks.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You might just be missing the official driver on the laptop. You should go to the manufacturer’s website to snag it:

hi first of all thanks for the post,
i have followed the step and able to make it as external [2] but still applications are getting installed on phone storage only … :(
i have 16 gm memory card, and free space of 13.6 gb when trying to install any application it is getting installed on phone internal memory, there is no change in free space of external memory card. it is same as previous 13.6 gb.

kindly help me to move applications to external memory.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Some apps cannot be installed to the external storage. Could you try to install one of the apps in the screenshot above in the “after” shot that was not in the “before” shot and see if it installs to the external storage? Also note that simply setting to 2 and then downloading may not move it there… you may have to move it manually.

Santosh Shrestha

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the prompt reply, I have change the setting as 2 (external) and post which i have uninstalled the Fruit Ninja application and installed once again but it didn’t installed in external SD. even i tried uninstalling 2 more games and installed once again but that also didn’t installed in external sd card.. kindly let me know if there are any other setting which needs to be changed.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Well as a general rule, you shouldn’t set the device to install to the external storage and then just leave it (as mentioned in the article). I’d recommend instead only changing it to #2 whenever you’re running out of space and need to move things over. Afterwards, you’d change back to #1. It’s a pain, but when you leave it in #2, some oddities -could- arise.

So as a test I’d turn it back to #1, download a app you -know- can be moved just fine, then change to #2 and see if you can use the Move to SD option for it. (Note though, games might “move” to SD, but if they are large, only a small portion might actually move over).

fyrekrig

I have a China tablet which I already rooted. The adb driver is installed and working but when I type “adb devices” “List of devices attached” is blank.

Your comment will be appreciated

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You might want to test it on a different PC if the device driver is installed. Some PCs are more finicky than others. Also make sure that USB debugging is on (or if it is on, turn it off and see what happens).

fyrekrig

I have tried on two other PC’s same result. Tried USB dbugging on/off also. Is the device info related to chip used on this tablet?
Chip is Rockchip SP098.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Do you have another device to test adb with? Not that it should matter, if it comes up without an error, it -should- work. You might be out of luck… it almost seems like the tablet isn’t configured to respond properly to adb (or more likely, there’s still a setting that’s preventing it from happening on the tablet).

fyrekrig

I found another way to move the un-movable apps by using terminal emulator in superuser mode by typing the same command “adb shell pm get-install-location”

Juan Sebastián Rozo

Could you extend on this finding, please? Because my GT I8190L with 4.1.2 doesn’t have the option to move apps to the SD card and still doesn’t allow me after this tweak…

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If the option doesn’t exist to move to SD for any app, you are out of luck as far as I’m aware, sadly.

fyrekrig

Tried to edit last post did not work. Command should be “pm set-install-location 2″

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

What do you mean by terminal emulator, exactly? An app you download straight to the device? If so I’ll look into that and give it a test, because that’d be even easier than dealing with drivers and adb on the PC.

Ograf

I am new to android tablets. I can not find any way to move any apps to my external sd card , which is a San disc 16GB flash memory card, class 4. I have moved things to the internal sd card, but so far even with apps from app store that claim to move apps to external card it just isn’t happening. Oh the memory card says it is a micro schd flash.
Would appreciate anything that allows me to use an external memory card. Tablet is a Turcom 10 inch Android 4.2 jelly bean.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Go to the Settings section of your Android tablet and then go into the Apps menu. From there you can select an app and see if the “Move to SD” option exists in the screen (an example is seen above). If the option is not there at all, that might be a tablet limitation. If it’s there but just faded out, then that means you can use this tweak.

james

I can not get the sdk software to work for the world… Ive looked and looked and its all like a bunch of jibberish.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

This is the reason I included a screenshot of the command-line that shows what it should all look like. Are you getting an error, or are you not able to find adb at all in the command-line?

Stefan Ivanovic

When I do operation ‘adb devices’ it just shows text “List of devices attached” but there is nothing else. I have attached my phone to my PC and set the MTP device connection but nothing. What have I done wrong? Is there something I’ve missed or forgot to do?

I downloaded last night all drivers from DELL official web site and now I am installing them, ’cause I connected my phone on my DELL lap-top. My phone is ZTE Blade G.. I downloaded and installed also ZTE drivers which link I found on OEM drivers.. But when I run USBDriverInstaller_x64.exe from folder like it wont run.. And in my device manager, betwen Others is always my Android device with yellow ‘!’ which means that isn’t installed properly.. I tried several step but it won’t work..

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Apologies for the slow response here. Are you able to try this on another PC? It sounds like your current one might just be stubborn. And for what it’s worth, you shouldn’t have to install any drivers from Dell; just ZTE, since it’s a ZTE device you’re trying to get working. Also, while I have a feeling you’ve tried it, be sure to enable USB Debugging Mode.

Stefan Ivanovic

I managed. The problem was that in USB mode I didn’t set first Drive mode, where I should’ve install some other drivers for ZTE, besides all of those, and so I installed the drivers and managed to finish. :) Thank you anyway! Professional answers! :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Ahh yes. Those USB settings area needlessly finicky. Glad you got it working!

sandy

Hi, i’m not yet to buy the dell venue 7 because there is no option mention for 3G via dongle or sim actually supported or not. please let me know whether it dose support dongls or only wifi otption to use internet.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That question is better-suited for Dell’s community forums; it’s totally irrelevant to the discussion here.

Matias Abel Acosta

fuck, i may as well just buy a windows phone, I am fucking tired of android shit app updates, insuficient storage abailable and apps I don’t fucking need.

Robert Alston

I wound up using this because for some reason I was unable to discern minitool partition was not detecting my sd card. I have a 2+ years old Sony-Ericsson Xperia Arc S. Outside of not extracting properly and misspelling ‘instal’ in the DOS command prompt–worked. Thank you. Still miffed there are some things won’t move but far better than where I was. Thank you again.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I am glad the article helped!

Ahmad Zuhdi Uzir

my device (S3 mini) not detected.why? need help

Ahmad Zuhdi Uzir

my device code name not appear.why?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Your PC is unable to see the device either because the device’s settings need changed, or there’s no driver installed. Download the respective driver here:

And be sure to enable USB debugging. If that doesn’t work, change the USB mode. If the worst case, try doing this on a different PC from scratch.

Sherwin Jonathan

Confirmed. It works on my Lenovo S920. Although I have to use “USB Storage” mode instead of “MTP” to make it discoverable by adb.

Popular application I am able to move after the tweak are such as:
Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp.
Still unmovable after the tweak are such as:
BBM.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Good to hear that Facebook and Twitter were able to be moved. I assume those did not ship as standard with the device? And for that matter, did BBM come included? Normally, the apps that can’t be moved like that come pre-installed. Either way, glad you got most of them moved.

Brian Fong

Hi Rob tks! it work for my Samsung Note 1. However, after doing all the setting in Samsung Galaxy s3 Mini – the Move to SD Card Option doesnt show in the MoveApps. Do you know whether s3 Mini blocked it? Tks!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If the Move to SD option doesn’t show up at all, then that leads me to believe that Samsung removed the feature (not entirely uncommon, unfortunately). I’d recommend downloading one of the apps that appears in my able-to-move screenshot (Chrome or Drive), then go to the Apps section of your Android system settings and into that app, then see if the option is there. If not, it’s a device limitation (well, more accurately a needless limitation the company decided to implement).

Niranjan

Man. I was seriously thinking of buying a new phone. You saved my time and money. Thanks a lot. It worked like charm.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’m glad it helped!

Safiyyah Azizan

Modified my Sony Xperia Neo with this, it works, thanks :) Just a side note for Mac users, the adb commands should be executed using “./” in front of them, e.g: ./adb devices
Otherwise you might get bash: adb: command not found

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That applies to Linux as well. Good catch.

Lukas Veitas

but… in mine linux mint i don’t need to write “./” on front :D So how it applies on linux? :D

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You’d need ./ if you were running the app from the downloaded SDK. If you installed through a repo, you will not need to use ./.

Akash Dubey

not working on my Sony Xperia Neo L

Please Help!!!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

What part is not working? Did the tweak apply correctly, or is that the problem?

Since Windows can’t see the app, you must be in the wrong directory. I’d advise that you find the adb.exe through the Windows file manager, and then look at its folder and travel to that inside the command line.

amir ebrahim moezzi

I did exactly what are told above on my xperia m dual. but it did not worked. I didn’t know what to do. I have completed this process 3 times but nothing. Any help will be useful.
thanks

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That phone has the Move to SD option disabled. It’s been a common complaint, and nothing can fix it as far as I’m aware (outside of replacing the ROM; complaining to Sony might not hurt either).

David

This is the best article I have found so far with practical instructions that work for us “geeks”. Thank you for posting this.

Cyril Samuel

all phones have 2 options while moving apps ‘move to sd card’ & ‘move to phone memory’ but my phone has options for ‘move to internal storage’ &’ move to phone memory ‘ why ther is no ‘move to sd card’ option

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Are you able to provide a screenshot of that? The wording makes the option sound redundant (both sound internal based on the wording). Either way, “Internal Storage” in this case might in fact be the “SD Card”. It’d be an odd thing to rename the option though.

Saqib Saleem

Hello Mr.Rob . Really a superb tutorial by you for complete noons like me . I appreciate your effort. I don’t want to make it long but unfortunately I have to . I have a dual core 1ghz ,512 mb ram, android 4.1.1 phone with a local branding known as voicetel model v30 here in Pakistan. There are three things in my phone 1. internal memory that is 503 mb for installing apps 2. Phone storage and 3. memory card storage for storing media files etc. But when viewing “gallery” it appears that phone memory , which is not used for installing apps , is sdcard1 and external memory card is sdcard0 . This is really confusing for me . So what should I write in that command to set install location , 1, 2 or 0 . Please note that I have not checked my current install location as yet using that get install location command . Hope you’ll understand what i am trying to say and help me in this regard

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That sdcard0 and sdcard1 folder you see is completely different than the adb command you issue. For example, my external memory card is mounted in the sdcard1 folder, but I use set install location 2 to set the device to it.

In probably every case, “2” will be the right choice for external memory, and 0 for internal. Just ignore those folders ;-)

Good luck!

Lukas Veitas

hehe sdcard0 for me is internal(pm set-install-location 1 (or 0 to set to auto, default)) and sdcard1 is external(pm set-install-location 2).

Simple Ways To Earn Money

I tested this and it work..the catch is.. i can only move my apps to another internal memory.. the PHONE memory not the SD card..help me please

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Your phone has two internal memories? I’ve never heard of that before. In a case like this you might have to use an option like “3” or something. What phone model is it?

Lukas Veitas

working on android 4.1.2!!! on my lg l1 ii!!! just dont switch off the phone and leave on charge only mode.. of course turn on the usb debugging.

koshy brahmatmaj

I am using Xperia Miro and my phone doesn’t show when I type in adb devices. any help

Also fiddle around with the USB settings, and above all, make sure USB debugging is enabled. In the worst case, try it on a different PC.

Dan

Hello,

I followed all your steps with my (new) Samsung Android 4.04 but the “Move to SD card” option still doesn’t show. Strangely, the app2SD does list apps which it detects as moveable but it then sends me back to the app manger for moving, where option does not exist.

Any advice??

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

What phone is it? It sounds like there’s some trickery going on, as if the phone mimics the external storage somehow. A model and then a Google search for the option might reveal others who share the same issue.

It lists explicit support for your phone model in the features (Galaxy S Duos).

Dan

Thanks. I just tried but again, whenever i click on “move to DS”, it send me to the app info – where the moving option does not exist.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

The “Move to SD” option doesn’t exist at -all-, not even faded out? It sounds like Samsung just disabled that option on that phone, contrary to that app’s supposed support for it. It seems as though your only option is to root the phone. Here’s a YouTube video I found which talks about the solution once the phone is rooted:

Given a root is mentioned here, I am guessing that a vanilla phone cannot have that option restored, unfortunately.

Dan

Nope, not even faded.

Is there a risk in rooting? Could you perhaps send me a link to instructions how to do it?

Many many thanks for your patience with me…

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

There’s always a potential risk with rooting, though it’s minimal for the most part. There are a ton of guides for it with that particular phone on Google (each phone roots differently), so I’d recommend checking some of them out and see if it’s something you want to go through with. This might be a good place to start:

Hi Rob, thanks for your advice. I just rooted my phone but even that didn’t seem to work.. :(

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You can’t move the apps after moving even with that app I suggested? If so, then it almost seems like you need to go the route of a custom ROM, but I’d not recommend that unless absolutely desperate.

ArrZee

Okay hi. I have tried this before and it worked wonderfully! However, I did a factory reset and this time this fails to works. I enter the setInstallLocation 2 command and I get “permission denied” in return. Any help please?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Was the firmware updated since the last time you performed the tweak? It sounds like the manufacturer could have restricted this option for some reason. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of someone getting a permission denied error.

Edit: I read somewhere that it could be related to USB debugging, so make sure that’s enabled.

CrashTestZombie

someone works this on Samsung xCover2?

CrashTestZombie

I make all like you show , there is picture

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If the option is not listed on that page at all, even faded out, then this tweak is not possible on that device, unfortunately.

CrashTestZombie

Then this xCover 2 is pretty big peace of sh*t … its not even smartphone, i cant do nothing with this phone, no rooting operations, is just useless phone…

You could root it and install an app that specifically supported rooted devices; then you might be able to move a lot more apps. I can’t guarantee this, however.

CrashTestZombie

Thanks anyway :P i will wait maybe some hacker made some great crack :)

shuhaib

aemi

my andriod SDk is unable to download .. an unknwn error occur…. i tried it 3 times same error occur all time. its starting to download but at the end error occur

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Can you just grab the archive I attached in this article? You’ll need 7-zip to extract.

Arobindo

HI Rob..I am trying it on my Android 2.2,,,when I use the get install command I only get 0 the option for 1 and 2 are not there…the set install command does not work…please help

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

The “get” command will show what the phone is set to, which is 0 by default. You’ll need to use the “set” command to actually set it (to 2), after which point the “get” command should return a 2. You’ll want to set it back to 0 after moving apps.

Basit

I would like to ask, Does this method work on Lenovo S650?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It doesn’t hurt to run the tweak and see. There’s no risk. It’s very hard to predict whether it will work. If your phone has a Move to SD option in general, then it should.

Julie Luu

Hey Rob:
Know of any reason why I can’t extract the platform tools
file properly? When I try to unzip, I get an error message saying
something to the effect of “can’t create destination folder” but that’s a
lie, as a window has opened underneath it asking where I’d like the
files to be unzipped to. So I close the error window and try to continue
with extraction, but the next error I get says something like
“unspecified error: 0x80004005 adb”. Here I can either “try again,”
“skip,” or “cancel.” Try again does not work. I’m afraid if I skip, the
download won’t work properly. Help?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’d recommend extracting that with 7-zip, a free and open source compression tool. I’ve tried to recompress that folder using different tools, and it feels like every single one I try will result in an issue for someone – it’s truly nonsensical. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Julie Luu

OK, will try that tomorrow, thanks! Stay with me here, Rob? I am a novice computer user, and some of these directions look like they could get complicated, especially with the cmd window…

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I am out of town, so haven’t had a chance to tackle this. Did you happen to get things figured out?

Sathiyaseelan David

Hi Rob..Im using Kitkat custom Mokee Rom on Huawei u8860….Can i use this method to move the apps????

Move to SD card option is available on my phone but i could not move the apps..pls help me

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Yes, it should absolutely work for you.

Stephanie Nicole Marquez

Did not work for me on Samsung Galaxy exhibit from metro PCs

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Did you encounter an error, or does the Move to SD button just not exist? If it doesn’t exist, the tweak won’t work because the vendor removed the option for it to. Samsung phones are hit-or-miss lately.

Muhammad Hasan

I do like ur suggestion but can’t success on sony xperia m dual. in cmd say “app2sd not supported in this device”.so what can i do? is there another way….?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Sony disabled the Move to SD option on the Xperia M Dual, unfortunately. I am not sure of a workaround; it might be worth posting over at xda-developers.com to see if someone has an idea on how to fix it with that particular model.

alone_boy

not working on my htc desire 500

alone_boy

not worked on my HTC desire 500

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Does the Move to SD option exist at all on that phone? If not, this tweak won’t work. If the option does exist, this tweak should work.

alone_boy

move option is exist but not active for system apps(like Google chrome or Facebook)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Apps that were preinstalled on the phone can’t normally be moved, because it becomes more of an OS feature rather than just installed software.

Juan Sebastián Rozo

Althoough everything seemed to work well on the commands window, i tried to move some apps using link2SD and I got the same mistake. Then tried using App2SD and still not able. I have a GT I8190L running 4.1.2 and rooted…

Teoh Yong

The command prompt says device not found when i type in adb device although my driver mananger detected my phone and gave port 0 to it already!:(

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

See if you can change the connection mode, and definitely make sure USB debugging is enabled. If that’s not the issue, try it in a different PC if you can, or download a terminal emulator on your phone and run the adb commands that way (I have not done this personally, but it’s possible).

http://koko.marley.blogspot.com Koko Marley

in my experiences many ppls have more than 1 driver installed as trial n error when tried to root their device, as i did lol, so when i saw on device lists, saw 2 devices, but i manage pick one and did it, but still my Vandroid T4A cant move app installed to sdcard, but i got another way using Link2Sd, but 1st device should be rooted, use Mini partition magic tools, make a partition to your sdcard, 1st part as Fat32 and 2nd part as ext2/linux, fat32 for media/fotos,etc ext2 for app link, example u got 2gb sdcard so u can make 800mb-1gb Fat32 and the rest as ext2 for app installed data, this trick works for new android device that have internal mem split by 2 parts, 1st as internal/phone mem 2nd as external virtual mem..after those step, open Link2sd sort ur installed app by internal mem sort, and start to link it to sdcard…Good Luck :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Oy, that’s quite the work-around. It’d be nice if all phones could just have the Move to SD option.

Anh Vũ

Hi,

I’m stuck at the very first command line (adb devices) to check if the phone is connected. I’m using Xperia E and it’s connected properly. Please help.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Go to that same folder in the file manager to see if adb.exe is there; that screenshot implies that it isn’t… for some reason. Perhaps it extracted improperly? If you’re using my ZIP, I’d recommend extracting it with 7zip, a free and safe tool.

Uday Rege

My phone (Panasonic T11) has a 4GB internal memory and a 1GB internal SD card. I have added an external 32 GB SD card. I would like to move some apps from internal memory to external 32 GB card. Do I need to change/modify the command line, so that the app can be moved on the external card.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Are you sure it’s an internal SD card? You’re not referring to the phone having 1GB of RAM? I looked that phone up and couldn’t find a trace of it having an internal SD card (it would be a bizarre implementation, admittedly).

I’d say you are still safe to use the commands the article highlights. If you truly do have multiple SD cards, I’m still thinking you’d have to use “2” and the phone would just copy it from one and then bleed into the next if storage is depleted.

Farhan Ahmed

So this tweak will not affect the phone and is not rooting? Will the phone still be safe to update its android version?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Yes. This is a built-in Android function.

Farhan Ahmed

But I have android 4.1.2 and I don’t have the “move to sd” feature, so will app2sd work? If not then I’ll just wait for 4.4 which might come for my phone this year.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Is the SD card operational? It could be that the manufacturer disabled that function. Sony is bad for this, but apparently some others are doing it as well. This is the first I’ve heard of a 4.1 device suffering that issue though.

I’d still try th tweak though and just see what happens. It won’t hurt anything. Just be sure to revert the setting after you are done.

Farhan Ahmed

No the “move to sd” function was removed in android 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2. But it returned in android 4.3 and 4.4. I have an lg optimus f3 and I heard rumers of it jumping from 4.1.2 to 4.4, so I’m just asking if app2sd will work after the tweak for my phone. If not then it really doesn’t matter cause hopefully I will get 4.4.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If the option to move to SD is not present, a third-party solution would be needed. But for those to work you probably still would need to run this tweak for apps that are stubborn. I am not entirely sure what alternate app to recommend, because App 2 SD simply utilizes the built-in function of Android. There are -many- alternatives though.

Thanks for the info on the Android versions… had no idea of that.

Farhan Ahmed

yeah so hopefully app2sd works and the third party solution would pretty much be rooting the device, which I don’t want to do. I’ll try the tweak and app2sd and hopefully get more space.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’d greater trust the Android solution over third-party for sure, given we’re dealing with the operating system itself here. Good luck, and sorry for your troubles, which simply shouldn’t exist.

Farhan Ahmed

I am very happy to say that this tweak is awesome! This tweak brought the “move to sd” option back so I can move minor apps. I cannot move apps that came with this like google search or google+ but this is good enough! Thank you for having this website and all of your help.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Ahh, I’m impressed it actually brought the option back. Good to hear!

Farhan Ahmed

However the catch is that only the app storage is moved and the usb storage stays. So in 2048, the 15mb app moved 5mb to the sd and 10mb as usb storage stays on the internal storage. Before moving it, there was 0mb usb storage and 12mb app, so it creates extra space after the move. So even for a 50mb app,only like 10% it moved. And for some apps its less beneficial to move the app since it creates more space. So I apologize for the inconvenience and am sorry to say that this tweak doesn’t really benefit me too much.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Some of the app should say, but those percentages seem a bit high. Any gain is a gain i suppose, but it’s unfortunate it’s not even greater.

Farhan Ahmed

OK with some precise calculations, mad research, and another phone with 4.2 I have discovered something. Android 4.1 is stupid and the USB storage app is moved to the SD card and the App part is moved. In Android 4.2+ it says “SD card storage” instead of “USB app storage.” The “move to sd” option is available after an sd card is mounted so that just happened by itself. Also for 2048 a 10mb app is increased to 18mb with 15mb moved to the sd and 3mb staying. So this tweak does work. However after this tweak apps CANNOT be installed at all! So an app must be installed, the tweak applied to move it, and then undo the tweak immediately. Even after it is undone, the app stays in the sd card, as long as I don’t accidentally touch “move to phone.” So yes this tweak does help, so thank you for everything and I apologize for annoying you too much.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Your last point there is the reason I have this line at the end of the article: “Once you have moved over everything that you need to, I’d highly recommend reverting the tweak by connecting your phone and setting the default location back to 0.”

I didn’t actually have a problem with installing apps with it set to 1 before, but it can definitely cause some issues. So you should really only set to 1 when you need some space, and then put it back. Hardly intuitive but that’s the price to pay I guess of having so little storage. In a way, I’m surprised someone didn’t create a special app to apply this tweak immediately, and then back again, since it just uses Android’s basic commands.

Either way, I’m glad you got things sorted. And no need to apologize, you’ve hardly been an annoyance!

The easiest thing would be to test a different distro though, or different PC in general.

Scott Richards

well I do – but using mint 15 / Mate on this one, Mint 13 I think on the laptop I guess I could try that.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That’s interesting. I didn’t have an issue at all with Mint. But… I did it in a virtual machine, so that could have made a difference.

If worse comes to worst, you can download a terminal emulator on Android and run the same adb commands inside of it. That’s not a method I’ve tried, but there’s been mention of it many times in these comments.

Scott Richards

Great Save !! good link Thanks

…

sudo ./adb devices
List of devices attached
a0000012b0a714 device

Looks like I might win yet!

….

$ sudo ./adb shell pm getInstallLocation
2[external]

Can’t move much of the google apps (or delete) but Google Play Services which used up 13 MB is moved

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Nice – was that through a terminal emulator, or a previous tip? And not all apps can be moved. Namely, those that came pre-installed on the device will be difficult to move, and other apps that the developers deemed unmoveable.

Scott Richards

At the risk of double-posting – it’s been 15 mins or better since I sent the first reply.

No, it was just using the shell in Mint 15 / Mate, but using the code from the above stackoverflow link:

sudo ./adb kill-server
sudo ./adb start-server
sudo ./adb devices

For good measure I sudoed the remaining commands as well.

I now have 23Mb of free internal storage, up from 10 [150Mb total] and now the as-shipped Google apps have completed their updates. I’d really like to delete a few of them, but can’t – no doubt another tutorial coves that ;-)

I’ve only added One 3Mb alarm app. which was unmovable,(now moved.) Obviously, the Sprint firmware package was oversized for having locked down internal storage.
I couldn’t move anything – not even the data. Now I’ve moved Google Play Services, the alarm app, and several app data files.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Sorry for the chat issues, Disqus can be a bit finicky at times.

Glad to hear that worked no problem. Way back when I tried to get that to work on Gentoo, it wouldn’t. It just seemed like adb wasn’t working for me at -all-. Not sure what it is. I need to apply this tweak to my NVIDIA SHIELD actually, so maybe I’ll see how I fare in Ubuntu 14.04…

You’ll have to conduct the tweak and find out for yourself. Generally speaking, if an app was pre-installed on the device, it might not be moveable. If you downloaded it off of the Play Store, or installed through an APK, you should be fine. If the app is conversation-based, like IM or email, it probably cannot be moved.

Lucy

For some reason, I can’t get past step 3, after putting in adb devices in the command prompt. It says ‘adb’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
Please help, I have a 1.2 internal memory and it’s killing me.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That error means that you’re not in the correct folder when trying to run adb. Please look at the “Note” in step 3 right before the screenshot of the command-line. That should help you get to the right spot easier.

Lucy

Sorry if it’s a dumb question, but what file manager? I did look at that note and try to open the command line like it said, but for some reason I don’t have that as an option when I shift + right click. Or maybe I’m doing it wrong.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It could be that the shortcut doesn’t work in some Windows versions, but it has worked for me in both Windows 7 and 8. For reference, here is what it should look like:

If for some reason that option doesn’t exist, the location you’re trying to “cd” to is inaccurate. Once you find the ‘adb’ file in the Windows file manager, getting to the same location inside of the command prompt will be easier.

Lucy

Ah, I got it! I found the option, I mean. Thank you for the picture, that was helpful. I also used 7Zip to extract the files properly. Back to step 3…

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Haha, good luck. The only thing that could screw with you now is a stubborn phone or a stubborn app.

Lucy

Thanks! I think it’s working but wow, 1.2 GB is really small. My apps alone make up 0.90 GB. At least for future apps I can move them to my external memory easily. ^_^ Yay for not having to root my phone~

Lucy

I’ll never get a phone with small internal memory again. >_<

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

The Android phone I based the first iteration of this article around in late 2011 had about 130MB of free storage – 1.2GB would have sounded like a dream ;-)

I’m glad you finally got it taken care of, and cheers for helping this article reach 500 comments! :P

You’ll find adb in the same location as mentioned in the article, and you’d execute the command in the same way the Linux screenshot shows (you might need ./ before each command, so ./adb devices).

Mr OC

Hey mate, thanks a lot for this tutorial but I have a problem with my Xperia E1. I tried everything: USB Debugging on and off with in every case the connection is set to MTP but he just doesn’t find the device in the command prompt. Do you have an idea what could be the problem?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’d recommend trying it out in a different PC, because that particular one might be fussy (did you install the official manufacturer drivers, though?). Alternatively, you can install a terminal emulator through the play store and execute the adb commands that way.

Eddie

-thank you, Rob. unfortunately, after downloading android-sdk-macosx I found this message:

The adb tool has moved to platform-tools/

If you don’t see this directory in your SDK,

launch the SDK and AVD Manager (execute the android tool)

and install “Android SDK Platform-tools”

Please also update your PATH environment variable to

include the platform-tools/directory, so you can

execute adb from any location.

-sorry I’m lost again! what must I do (“in plain English”!)? help please!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That message isn’t important; the adb file is in the platform-tools folder just like the article states. You can use the Finder tool to search for it, and then get to the file like the attached screenshot shows (I assume you extracted the folder inside of the Downloads folder?).

yasser

i did the same for LG optimus L7 but didn’t work it the move to sd butto didn’t appear at all

Eddie

Thanks Rob. After I realised I had downloaded the wrong file, I found the dab tool in the form of a terminal Mac window. Although my phone was not recognised, I still tried entering the different commands (see below), but with no success. Please advice. Thank you. Edmund

Terminal – bash – 80 x 24

adb devices

-bash: adb: command not found

./adb shell

-bash: ./adb: No such file or directory

pm set-install-location

-bash: pm: command not found

pm setInstallLocation

-bash: pm: command not found

Eddie

Hello Rob! Following my previous mail I managed to get my phone recognised by my Mac, enabled USB debugging, then went to the sdk platform-tools folder, found the sdb folder, which opened as a Terminal window as follows:

ANDROID_SERIAL – The serial number to connect to. -s takes priority over this if given.

ANDROID_LOG_TAGS – When used with the logcat option, only these debug tags are printed.

logout

[Process completed]

I’m afraid that after this highly expert analysis I got even more confused: what to do? Help please. Eddie

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

According to those commands, all you did was execute ‘adb’ and not ‘adb devices’ or whatever else. If all you do is run ‘adb’ with no switches, it’ll print out that mammoth list, which just tells you how to use it. Since you got that wall of text just fine, it means you were in the correct folder, so just run ‘adb devices’ to make sure that the device is seen again, and then run the other commands.

I am not sure if I mentioned it before, but if you have trouble, you can download a terminal emulator for Android and run the same adb commands from inside that. I haven’t done this yet, but I plan to soon. Many here have mentioned that they’ve done it that way.

Eddie

Thank you so much, Rob! The tweak has finally worked and the “Move to SD card” buttons have lit up! However, every time I attempt to move an application through Link2SD I get this message: “Failure! Link2SD could not obtain root access. If you have root access, make sure you respond ‘Allow’ or ‘Grant’ to the superuser request”. How should I proceed? Thanks again. Eddie.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I am not familiar with that app. It’d be worth giving the app a go that I mention in the article, and see if that fares better. You don’t need root access for this tweak.

The problem is looking at the text on a small screen, but you can definitely get by.

Uchiha

Thanks allot, I’ll give it a try right away.

Amir Hossein

Hello, i have a problem i did exactly what you said but after i command “adb shell pm set-install-location 2″ this the you said command”get-install-location” this to check but it said” ‘get-install-location’ is not recognized as an internal or external command,operable program or batch file.
i have sony xperia z
thanks

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That’s just a part of the command. You’ll need to run:

adb shell pm get-install-location

selftruth

I have an LG F3Q and this worked. with some managing I will be able to live with the 1gig of memory and a micro sd card. thank you .

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’m glad it helped! I don’t envy a 1GB restriction, that’s for sure.

selftruth

yea I’m not a heavy gamer so it will work . its a great phone besides that . Also, once i did this, now ALL apps are movable without the tweak. thanks again

Darwish

Hey Rob, will this tweak work on the HTC M8 (4.4.2 OS) ?? Thanks in advance

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Yes, it should work no problem. In effect, if the Move to SD option exists at all (even faded out) inside of an app info screen, the tweak will work.

mrslilypond

I get a file skipped unkown compression method when I try to extract the file to my desktop…um help

guy that is new

I can’t extract it

guy that is new

I can’t extract it

guy that is new

It just says error

guy that is new

Error 0x80004005

guy that is new

I’m using a windows rt

guy that is new

8.1

guy that is new

Windows rt 8.1

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Windows RT runs on ARM, while the adb.exe program runs on x86. Nonetheless, here’s an alternate archive I created with Windows itself:

What won’t download? The archive off of our server or the official package?

Davor Ivić

Hi Rob,
I am running Android 4.2.2. with CynogenMod. The memory eaters I’d like to move from phone to SD are Contacts Storage, Galery, Sound recording storage and Google Play and Google Maps. Are these safe to move?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If you’re given the option to move them, then you should be fine. Just note that external storage is generally slower than internal storage, so moving something like your contacts storage might result in some lag when you’re dialing out (unless this is a standalone app I’m not aware of). Also, when moving apps that come with the OS, I’d recommend never removing the storage physically unless the phone is powered off, since the OS might freak out about broken links. Most people will leave their storage in their until they upgrade though.

Davor Ivić

Thx for clarification. That is exactly what I planned on doing. The card stays in until I change the phone.

David Uijl

I have a Huawei Ascend Y300 with Android 4.1.1. My phone connects to Windows 7 with the ‘USB debugging’ on and ‘MTP’. But the ‘list of devices’ returns no device. The get and set commands return ‘error: device not found’. I switched every setting and retried. The computer says the phone’s connected vice versa, but no reaction in the command-mode. Can you help?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’d change the MTP mode to something else, if possible, and see if that helps anything. Also, make -sure- you have Huawei drivers installed. You can grab them here:

If you still can’t get it working, you might want to try it out on another PC. Or, install a terminal emulator, and run the tweak on the device itself.

David Uijl

Stupid me. There is a menu option to easily change the storage location. After changing it to SD card my app2sd app could remove most apps.
Thanx!

catalin

ia says phone not found

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Be sure that you’ve installed the official manufacturer drivers (linked below), and try to fiddle around with the USB settings on your device. Alternatively you can install a terminal emulator from the Play Store and run these commands in there.

By trying what mentioned in this post, doesn’t able to move GTalk, Facebook, Contacts Storage (56.90MB) to SD card, it is all pre-installed thing!

1.5 hours gone for adp thing and 2.5 hours to get mount the phone in Ubuntu: zero result after 4+ hours, but this may be helpful for other phones, at least not for Micromax A25.

Éric De Guzmán

does it work also for samsung galaxy s duos running on jelly beans?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

The tweak is non-destructive, so it’s worth just testing and see. If the “Move to SD” option exists at ALL (even if it’s faded out), then there’s a 99% chance the tweak will work.

Zaziuma

Oh shit, this worked wonders. Thanks a lot dudes!

Sagar Vasnani

Hey, an error is being showed. I first thought it must be coz am running on ART, so I switched to Dalvik. But still, the same thing goes, and even the move-2-sd option hasn’t been enabled yet. :(

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That’s a bizarre error! The tweak still applied no problem though. If you’re trying to move an app that was pre-installed on the device, that’s why you’re unable to move it. You should be able to move most other apps.

Sagar Vasnani

Even the WhatsApp has the option disabled, even though it’s not a pre installed app

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Some developers prevent their apps from being moved because it’s important that they be housed on the internal (faster) memory. This is common of chat applications because if parts of the app are stored on external memory, it can cause an issue right after a reboot, or if the external storage is removed and put back in. It’s hardly ideal, especially with an app that hogs 75MB.

Sagar Vasnani

No, even many other apps like Google Keep, File Manager HD, Menthal, Google Camera, etc, etc have this option still disabled

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That is so bizarre. I Google’d that error, and it doesn’t seem like it’d be the cause here, nor does it seem like something YOU can fix. What stumps me most is that your get-install-location command returned the proper “2”; yet, these apps still can’t be moved. I’m at a loss. I’d recommend testing the tweak on another PC, but that might just be grasping at straws.

Sagar Vasnani

Well, dude. This time it happened (on the same system). I just don’t know how it worked fine, I just know that even WhatsApp is now movable

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

So bizarre! Glad it worked out in the end though. Could have been a far greater headache I suppose ;-)

Sagar Vasnani

Seriously!!

Tai Mai

Wow… this works nicely with app2sd. I’m finally able to move the stubborn AngryBirdGo game to the SD card. Thanks much!

Ankush Gujrathi Shrimali

is this mehod works with android kitkat..???

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Yes, it should work no problem!

Valentine Frenett

Fell at the first hurdle downloaded and installed Java development tool after the SDK thingy failed due to Java not being installed only to get the same error and I do not know how to change environmental variables

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

adb doesn’t require Java. Are you able to download our archive (extract with 7-zip), and give it a test?

first of all – thanks for the great article! but… with my Motorola XT886 on 4.0.4 – no luck :( after switching to 2[external], no app has move button enabled and the app2sd claims that I have no sd card or its been emulated (what? oO). the phone is locked with the local provider. any chance to move some app for me? cause with modern games 1 gig of internal memory isnt funny at all…

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

As far as I’m aware, emulated storage means that Move to SD simply won’t work, because the device maker decided to get creative. One possible option is to root the phone and uninstall the bloatware that came with it, but I’m not certain that’d work; you might have to replace the entire ROM, which is hardly a walk in the park.

I feel your pain though. I have an 8GB phone without an SD card slot, and I regret not opting for the 16GB. I don’t install -that- much, and yet I only have 1GB free (I have only a few minimal games installed… probably 200MB total). It’d be great if device makers stopped shipping so much bloatware.

Alexey Medyanik

thanks for the answer… I had one game 338M + another one which installs 41M but immediately loads up 530M pack (into the same internal, ofc). after freeing up some space and letting the download completed, I got my 1st game unable to run lol :) and then I stumbled upon this article http://beranger.org/2013/06/14/android-storage-what-nobody-bothered-to-tell-you/ – and realized that without custom ROMs i wont go anywhere. thanks for the help anyway, will play one game at a time from now on lol :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Such a hassle, I feel you. I am always wary about going the custom ROM route, but sometimes desperation kicks in :S

I Installed Android SDK Manger and did all the steps above mentioned.
Screen shoot I am attaching

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I have never seen that before, and have no idea why it would be talking about a Package Manager when the archive is supposed to be all-inclusive. It might be worth trying it on a different PC, if possible.

Prem Raj

I have tried in two more other computers, it gives same error. Download archive from your link and run adb inside of it, that also giving same error.My phone is Panasonic T21, Android 4.12

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’ve Google’d up and down and have been unable to find a solution to this problem. Most people who encounter it are developers. adb is a simple app, so it shouldn’t be looking for ANYTHING at all. You might want to DL the full-blown package and run the GUI, and then install the tools for your respective Android version (an example of this can be seen in the article). I am not sure that’d help though.

Prem Raj

Thank you very much for your kind help

Dhrupad Damani

Hi, I am seeing two devices when I type “adb devices”. How do I select one of the two devices. I would appreciate it a lot if you could tell me how to choose the device.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Run the command before the phone is plugged in, and then after, to see which ID that exact device is. You then select it with:

If I set the parameter to 2, it chooses 3rd option i.e. SD card. How do i choose my 2nd option i.e. Device storage of 4 GB that is currently not available to apps.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I have never dealt with a device with three separate storage mounts, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that a phone would have two internal locations. I am guessing that you’re simply unable to select #2, because it’s part of the internal storage; it’s just a specific folder on the internal storage. If #2 were truly separate storage, you should see it come up as two separate drives when you plug it into your PC.

Ammar

even moving apps to sd card there are some files taking place in internal storage of those apps

Jayaprakasam Jaganathan

i did solved my issue thanks for the help. though i am unable to move some of the app like chrome, king soft etc

Kelmen Wong

I got error when attempting the set-install-location
[FXN.ASD]Error: App2Sd is not supported on this device. Drop change request.

does this mean I’m out of luck?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Is that an error that appears inside the App 2 SD app we recommended? If so, you can try another app, or go through the Apps section under Settings and try to move individual apps manually. If set-install-location didn’t itself yield an error in the command-line, you should be fine.

Kelmen Wong

no, the error is at when I doing this “adb shell pm set-install-location 2″

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That does tell me that that device somehow prevents it. It’d be worth trying it on another PC just in case, but it seems like you are out of luck. Even Google hasn’t helped me get to the bottom of that one.

Lukáš Schöbel

Can you make video how to? Please, I dont know what download to phone what to PC, sorry I am amateur in this but I want Angry Birds Go in SD but it cant move.Plz make video.

As admin, I downloaded the adb toolkit, performed the cmd line commands – I got the “2”. I unplugged the Galaxy 2 7.0 tablet. I installed App2Sd (and AppMgr III), and see that I have a bunch of moveable apps and I see that I have no apps on microsd card but I see that I have 29.71 Gb left of the 32 Gb microsd in my Galaxy Tab 2 . I tap a movable app but it does not have the “move to sd card box” feature. In fact, not a single app (on the movable side) shows the “move to sd” box for any of my apps. I get a pop-up at the bottom that tells me to “tap the move to” button but it isn’t there on any app. It’s like it sees the microsd but won’t allow anything to move. Have I missed a step?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Sorry for catching this so late. I’d make sure that the SD card is usable (that it can store data and that the Android OS sees that data). I assume that’s all fine and good though, so that’s a rather bizarre problem. Are you certain that it’s still set to 2? It might be worth setting to 2 while it’s plugged in, and try to move apps while it’s plugged in.

If the Move to SD option is not visible at ALL on your device (as in it’s literally not there, not just faded out), then that’s the problem of the device. If you can upgrade to a later version of Android, you should. Apparently there are a couple of versions (4.1 and 4.2 I believe) that didn’t have the option available.

dilip peswani

There seems to be an compression error in the 4 MB zip file of Android Platform Tools.. Any other link for this?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Please use 7-zip (a free tool) to extract. I never managed to compress it in a way that everyone could easily extract it.

Nhn Hosaini nsab

you haven’t said anything about “USB driver for Windows” …
and without that the connection between pc and smartphone wont stablishe.

in my device it worked and changed my default storage location but still have problem to moving app by app 2 SD .(i have htc desire sv).

thanks a lot anyway

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Step 3 talks about the Windows driver. Not everyone will need to go seek out a driver though, because in some cases, Windows might take care of it for them. That’s at least been the case for me – I don’t need a driver for anyone of my current devices under Windows 8.

Also, if you can’t move an app, it might be limited to that app. If App 2 SD lists no apps at ALL, then that’s very strange, and not typical.

Nhn Hosaini nsab

Hi Rob
please excuse me because i really didn’t see your note in step3 and faced trouble and…
i think my problem is the way app2SD in my phone detects the SD card .i have a 16G microSD memory cards but this program shows the phone storage as SDstorage.
please see the attached photo for more details.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

There’s no photo attached to your post, but I think I know what you mean. At the bottom of App 2 SD it will tell you how much free space is on the phone when you’re in that specific tab. Then when you swipe over to the SD page, it will show how much space is available there.

Nhn Hosaini nsab

there is 3 photos i compressed them by winrar..
however i resent them. please look at them.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I have a feeling Disqus is eating your attachment. You’re able to attach the images directly to your comment.

NHN

could you see the images i posted at techgage.com ?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Just one came through, but it explains the situation better. Instead of using App 2 SD, maybe you could go to a couple of different apps you hoped to review manually (Settings > Apps), and then see if the option exists to move them. Alternatively, you could look for another app like App 2 SD that doesn’t suffer this same flaw. I downloaded the app and can confirm that SD Card pane should show the storage for the SD card.

NHN

thanks a lot Rob.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Sorry I couldn’t have been of more help. I feel your frustration for what it’s worth. Have had to deal with the same foolish thing. I have an 8GB phone that has little storage left, and doesn’t even have an SD card option.

NHN

i have a lot to say to you in my language but (i think) in english i should to say”you’re brilliant”.
i am expert to deal with the computer problems but in android…
you did your best and that worth a lot for me.

Rahul

it is saying program too big to fit in memory. What can I do

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Where are you seeing that error? When trying to move an app? If so, is there enough free space on the SD card?

Rahul

Sir this problem has been fixed and now the problem is that I can’t move my games completely to sd card. only some part of them moves in it. Please help me sir

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You’ll be unable to move the entirety of the game over, some files has to remain on the device. It should be the bulk of the files that move, though.

NHN

here are 3 photos…

krishna ahir

does this work on micromax unite 2 a106 too?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It’s a non-destructive tweak, so it’s worth trying just in case. It’s more likely to work with Android versions before 4, 4.0, and 4.3+.

Tairetsu

what kind of problems could I experience should I not revert the default location to the phone´s memory?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I doubt anything severe would come of it, but if the phone thinks that the external storage is now the main device, it could start saving more important data there automatically; down the road, removing the SD card could -definitely- cause problems there (or if the SD card dies). I generally just recommend switching back to 0 (auto) to avoid any potential issues.

Tairetsu

oh,thank you!

chirag

in command prompt it says no device detected under adb devices.
my device is micromax a116 plss help.
i have installed the drivers for micromax (a116)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Have you enabled USB debugging? Could there be some USB-related feature on the phone that’s preventing it from connecting to the PC via the correct protocol (MTP vs. others)? If you have another PC, I’d recommend trying it on that since it could also be an OS issue.

Atindra Singh

Hi, I am using Spice mi 535 with Android 4.2.1 version.
I installed sdk manager and found that this android version is not listed there. but i installed other things which u hv mentioned above.
In CMD, I found error message that no device is listed and also got error msg when tried to get location.
While My phone was showing connected and was in USB debugging mode. What is the issue? plz help.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

When you go into the App section of the Settings menu, and then click on an app, do you see a Move to SD option, even faded out? It’d look like the above screenshots. I am thinking that Android 4.2 doesn’t have that option anyway, so your efforts might be for nothing. That aside, be sure you have the proper Windows drivers for your phone.

Joe Sam Baryshnikov

what am I doing wrong? Everytime I enter in the command it says it killed it or something…. I have all the drivers downloaded…

Joe Sam Baryshnikov

oh, and I’m running version 2.3.4 it’s the LG Optimus Q.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You did nothing wrong at all. That issue has been brought up before, but there’s never been a solution that I could see. Your best course-of-action is to test the tweak on another PC, because maybe it’s that particular PC and not the phone’s problem. This isn’t a driver issue on account of the fact that it -does- detect the device.

Leticia Oppenhuizen

Hello Rob,
First of all thanks a lot for posting this as it bothered me for a long time.
Yet Please help…
I have a Samsung Gio GT-S5660 with Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread XXKTK, but I do not see the green Android figure when I hook it up to my pc [only once by accident].
Also really by accident I see that my phone tells me that now the USB is disconnected and then I can finally see the content of the SDcard on my pc.
Before it said insert a card into your Removable Disk (F:) and so I even thought the card was corrupted]. Yet now I cannot see the SDcard on my phone…
Next I have no clou as how to set/find this USB Debugging thing, neither do I know if it should be on or off….
I downloaded the file as you said and if I click File Manager in there it starts to download [god knows where though]
“Once you’ve established where the ‘adb’ executable is, you can navigate to its location using the ‘cd’ tool “…. sctrach sctrach…what is the ‘adb’ executable and where to find it, also where do I find the ‘cd’ tool ????
By the way the App2Sd worked fine, but is not the thing I am looking for..:-(
and to move the apps to my SD card [when possible] is no problem.
Thanks for your help, be sure I really tried to get it working
Leticia from Holland

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

“USB Debugging” is found under the Developer Options menu in the Settings screen. If for some reason it’s not there, go into the “About Phone”, and scroll down to the “Build number”. Tapping this 7 or so times will reveal the menu (though I’m thinking this is required only for Android 4+).

The “cd” tool is a standard Windows command, used just to navigate from one folder to another. For your sake, just ignore that, and refer to the section above the command-line screenshot in the article that starts with “An alternative way to open a command-line”.

If your phone is plugged in, and the ‘adb devices’ command spits back a model number, the tweak should execute fine.

Leticia Oppenhuizen

Thank you for your reply. I do as you state: No Developer options there so I went into the “About Phone”, and scrolled down to the “Build number”. Tapping this 7 or so times…. nothing happens, even tapping 20 times
.How important is this Debugging thing and should it be ‘on’ or ‘off’?

Leticia Oppenhuizen

Just found it under ways to root the Gio S5660: USB Debugging: Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging and checkmark the box.

So think I have to check it, set it to ‘on’.

Leticia Oppenhuizen

Was disconnected but Try it again:
When I Rightclick etc. it gives me only: Extract All…The Command Prompt itself does not recognise > Desktop. So stuck again.
Should I do the “Extract All….’-thing… not knowing where it goes to?

Leticia Oppenhuizen

Also: Should I see what is on the SD-card on my PC or not ??
And in the text it says: the ‘USB debugging’ option in the Developer options menu will need to be checked off, yet in the picture it is checked “on”.
So which way to go ?? Thanks for your reply :-)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Regarding extracting the archive (assuming you are downloading the one I linked to in the article, from our site), you’ll need to go to the folder it downloaded to. By default this folder can be found in your library, or C:UsersUsernameDownloads. Or the desktop. If you downloaded the .zip file from our site (android_moving_to_sd_card/android_x86_64_20130917_platform-tools.zip), and still can’t find it, simply search your computer for it using the search tool in the Windows file manager.

Once the file is found, you can right-click it and extract with “Extract All”. That will extract it to the same folder it’s in, creating a folder in the process. You’d then go into that folder and look for the adb.exe file.

From that point, you’d refer to the section that begins with the note, “An alternative way to open a command-line in the same”.

Hope this helps. I know this can be a little overwhelming.

Leticia Oppenhuizen

Thanks for your reply again. Got the zip-folder from your link and do the above: open the zip-folder and get a platform-tools folder and open that one. In there I click “Extract all..’ from the adb [Type Application Size 800kb] which gives first: Files will be extracted to [same platform-tools folder] then I get:
error 0x80004005: Unspecified error and after that the folder is empty.
Also if I do the Extract All…. to the zip-folder: same story
I have no phone connected in this case. Should I ?
The other 2 questions still remain: 1-Should USB Debugging be checkmarked? 2-Why don’t I get the CommandPrompt if I rightclick outside the files and then going to CommandPrompt itself he does not recognize >Downloads [where I have the file]
Still hanging in there and asking for your patience….

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Ahh, that’s great! Glad you got it sorted out :)

Leticia Oppenhuizen

Hello Rob,
First of all thanks a lot for posting this as it bothered me for a long time.
Yet Please help…
I have a Samsung Gio GT-S3556 with Gingerbread2.3.6 XXKTK
I can have USB storage on or off if on I see the content of my SDcard on my pc, which mode I should be in?
Also cannot find the USB Debugging thing neither do I know if it should be on or off.
I downloaded the file as you said and if I click adb in there it starts to download [god knows where though] and afterwards the whole file becomes empty.
“Once you’ve established where the ‘adb’ executable is, you can navigate to its location using the ‘cd’ tool “…. now where do I find the ‘cd’ tool ????
By the way the App2Sd worked fine, but is not the thing I am looking for..:-(
and to move the apps to my SD card [when possible] is no problem.
Thanks for your help, be sure I really tried to get it working
Leticia from Holland

Aman Mutreja

Great stuff. Provided a relief from dying internal memory of Micromax Unite 2. While buying the phone, never thought 900 MB of internal storage would ran out so fast. Even with so many built-in apps disabled, ran out of space yesterday. Apps are so huge in size these days.

With this method, I was able to move approx. 100 MB worth of apps (including WhatsApp) to SD storage. It didn’t let me move Chrome though (It’s the costliest.. currently sitting @ 77 MB).

For ppl unable to move FB app, I uninstalled the app and re-installed it from an apk which I was able to move to SD. Later, update the app from play store and it stays in SD without any issues.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’m glad the article helped! How did you manage to uninstall Facebook? I am wondering if that’s device-specific, because usually when you uninstall a preinstalled app, it simply undoes the updates that were applied, essentially reverting it to the version that the phone shipped with.

Kedar Pataki

Hi Aman/Rob, really great article but its not working for my micromax unite 2. Can you please help. main error is that, after putting first command, it is only coming as ” list of devices attached” and after putting second command of get location, it is coming as “error: device not found”.

I am able to access mobile files from my laptop but still I think this issue is related to USB driver.

Please help.
Thanks.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It does in fact sound like a driver issue. The fact that the PC can use the device as a disk drive is unrelated. You can head here and hopefully find the driver you need:

Please download 7-zip (a free archiver) to extract it, or download the full-blown package. I zipped up the folder using Windows’ basic archiving tool before and people had issue with that as well. It’s a lose-lose. Shouldn’t be so hard to zip a folder but apparently it is for me ;-)

Ishaankhan Pathan

OMG!! This works perfectly!! I am so glad to get this fixed..thank you so much! :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’m glad it helped! Enjoy :)

Mustafa Kamal

excuse me…
when i do “adb shell pm set-install-location 2″ it was resulted by “[FXN.ASD]Error: App2Sd is not supported in this device. Drop change request.”

what should i do?

many thanks.

Mustafa Kamal

btw, i use xperia M c1905 with android 4.3…

many thanks

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Whoops, Disqus did not show this comment when I saw the other. The Xperia M has been an infamous phone in this comment section, no one has been able to use this trick on it. Blame Sony :-/

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I believe that’s the direct result of there being more than one drive partition in the main system flash. That in effect means you’d be out of luck unless you went through great effort to root the device and merge the partitions together (something I have no experience with at all).

You may want to Google your exact phone model with “FXN.ASD” and see if it brings up some useful help.

http://benguitar90.wordpress.com/ Benguitar90

Great!!!! thanks a lot! :)

Alexandros Philippou

Hi! I have an Archos 79 Xenon which has an internal usb memory and which therefore does not utilize at all the external sd card that I have added to it. Moreover, in the settings menu, only move of an applicatio to the internal usb memory appears as an option and nothing seems movable to the added sd card. Now to my question: Will I be able to move applications to the sd card following the described procedure? Since Archos does not appear on any of the lists, here is a link describing the phone/tablet:http://www.archos.com/gr/products/tablets/xenon/archos_79xenon/specs.html?#menu

See forward to any suggestions.

Thank you

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It’s very difficult to say whether or not you will have success or not. Because of the different design, you might encounter an error. What I would do if I were in your shoes is, connect the device to the PC, and look at how much free space is on the SD card. Then run this tweak, and if success, move an app. Then hook the tablet back up to the PC and see if the amount of space available on the SD card changed. If so, things look good, if not, it means that it moved the app to the internal USB storage that you referenced instead.

Jeffrey Davies

Hi Rob. Thanks for this article. Having read various examples of this tweak, yours is by far the best as far as I am concerned. I do have a problem which you may be able to help me with. When issuing the command to search for “adb devices” the system fails to find my tablet although windows 7 devices and printers shows an MT65xx Android Phone and device manager shows a portable device. Can you help, please?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I think this has to do with the fact that tablets don’t use the same kind of drivers that our phones do. I can’t get a device to show up with two tablets I have sitting here, either. If your device is rooted, you could download a terminal emulator from the Play Store and simply type in ‘pm set-install-location 2′ without quotes. In all likelihood, that will not work on a non-rooted device.

Jeffrey Davies

Hi again Rob. Just wanted to thank you for your prompt reply to my previous enquiry. As you may have gathered I am a novice to this stuff (but am quite good at following instructions ). I followed your advice using an emulator (my tablet is rooted) but the response came back “killed”. As I do not use the device as a phone and a number of apps seem unavailable even though installed, I really need to clear out some stuff. Thanks for listening I will need to do more research, I think.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I missed a step. The first command should be ‘su’ without quotes, and it should say Superuser Granted by whatever SU app you use. THEN that command should hopefully work.

Jeffrey Davies

Awesome, Rob. This has allowed me to move some memory hungry apps and by rooting the device and using the app “titanium backup” I should be able to remove (carefully) some of the pre-installed bloatware to free up more storage. “Respect” to you and many thanks again.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Glad to hear it helped, and that you didn’t get stuck in a non-fixable roadblock :-)

MeMy

This was way too complicated for an outsider to do. Or at least it was too complicated for me as an outsider.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It’s not the easiest task for those not familiar with it. If you have a rooted device, you can install a terminal emulator off of the Play Store and take care of the task that way, right on the device. If you do end up doing that, let me know and I can tell you the commands.

MeMy

Thanks for the tip. I haven’t rooted my device yet actually. I might spend more time trying your original method. I’m a total novice and outsider, and I basically know nothing about any of this stuff. But I can read, so I may be able to figure something out :) Thanks.

B) Enable USB debugging in the settings of the phone, under developer options. If developer options doesn’t exist, go into the About phone screen and tap the “Build number” 7 times.

C) Download the full package linked to in the article, or my smaller archive, and extract it with 7-zip: http://www.7-zip.org/download.html (download the 64-bit version if you have 64-bit Windows; you can find out by right-clicking Computer in the Start menu or desktop and going to Properties.

D) After downloading and extracting the folder, go into it, and find the folder that has ‘adb’. While holding Shift, right-click with your mouse inside the folder and hit “Open command prompt here”. (Ctrl + F and search for ‘An alternative way’ without quotes to see an example in the article).

E) Once a prompt is open, you can type in this command:

adb devices

If that works, then go back to the article and look at the code example blocks (near the middle).

Hope this helps!

Milenko

I have LG L70 D320 running ANDORID 4.4.2 and i searched on web for sdk and they didn’t mention that you must to type set-install-location 2 they only write about pm setInstallLocation 2.Thank you you saved my phone!

Is USB debugging turned on, and did you install the appropriate Windows driver for your phone?

Jayp Marcelo

Yes, it is already turned on. And how will I know if it works?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If USB debugging is enabled, then it means there’s no phone driver installed (or it’s not working for some reason), or the USB mode that’s set on the phone is interfering. I am not familiar with that phone, but you will want to look around for USB-specific options that lets you change modes when plugged in (Disk Drive, PTP, et cetera), and then try each one until the phone finally shows up after you run ‘adb devices’.

If for some reason it STILL doesn’t work, you might want to try it on another PC if it’s possible.

Jayp Marcelo

Thank you for the tips and info. I’ll try it to another pc.

Chris

Thanks Dude, It worked……

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I am glad it helped!

Arun Sethuramalingam Sethurama

Hi Rob, I have problems with LAVA iris X1 mobile. It uses 4.4.2 . When i try to run “adb devices” in cmd promt it doesn’t display anything. I confirmed that the instrument is with the latest devices.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I am not familiar with that brand at all; have you installed the device’s official Windows drivers? Have you double-checked that USB debugging is enabled?

Arun Sethuramalingam Sethurama

USB debugging is enabled. Guess Windows drivers are upto date. Will have a cross check again and update you.

if for some reason installing those doesn’t help the situation (I’d reboot after installing them), you might possibly need a newer version of adb, which can be had by downloading the full SDK.

Karan Sharma

Got stuck at the very first step, downloaded the SDK package :(667 KB) and while extracting gives 14 errors. Can’t extract it, HELP! I have a budget tablet – Celkon CT910+ and facing the low internal memory issue. Anyone who can help please mail me at [email protected]. Thanks a ton

This is a non-destructive tweak, so it’s worth a try. If it’s rooted you could download a terminal emulator and get the job done quicker.

Celso

I’ve tried it on the L70 but it does not find it when you do the “adb devices” command

Tom

F..king facebook lol it’s sh!t that you can’t move most of the apps… what’s the point of giving the advantage to people to use the SD cards if you can’t utilize it, very disappointed

TopArf

Just wondering. When I try to move apps to we card once I choose that and it’s done I check the app again. And instead of moving to the sd card it moves to sd storage app… what does this mean?

Thanks

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That sounds like the same thing. When you move something, does it free up some of your main storage?

TopArf

I am going to upload 2 pics. One is what information I get when a specific app is on the phone and a second pic showing the information after I move an app to supposedly to the see card. After I am done the see card still says 0 but the other values change.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

What phone is this? The tweak appears to work just fine, but for some reason it doesn’t acknowledge that it’s copied the data over to the actual SD card. I have no idea what “USB storage app” is in this case; I’ve never seen any listing like that on any of my Android devices before.

Matt

Can this be done for Whatsapp?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Should be able to as long as the device didn’t ship with it.

Josh Wallace

zte majesty i did the tweak, but still won’t let me move google+ or chrome and they are taking up the space!! please help!!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If the apps were pre-installed with the device, that’s likely the problem. If so, they can’t be removed without rooting the device, and even then it might take a little more effort than this tweak.

priteem behera

Thanks! It worked perfectly BUT I only got some 3 or 4 apps to be moved. still apps like chrome, google drive are non-movable…any help..I’m using 4.4.2

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It’s rare when a pre-installed app can be moved, as unfortunate as it is. In regards to your other comment with the screenshot, I am not sure what the error means, but the fact that you’ve moved some apps means it works just fine. Those errors could be meant for developers.

also i would like to add an important thing..i got some “warnings” while doing this..here’s the snap

kope

it does not work for me, phone only apps canot b emoved after this. I have huawei y530 android 4.3

Celso

I have a question. When I do the command “adb devices” my device does not show up. I have followed the steps precisely but still can’t get it to find my device.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Just to double-check: You’ve installed the official driver for the device, and you enabled USB debugging? It could be some other setting on the phone that’s screwing with things, so I’d look for any overarching USB option that will let you change the setting from MTP to Disk Drive to et cetera, and try each one to see if one works better than the other. If your device is rooted, let me know.

samad

i have connected my device and all drivers are properly installed still when looking for devices via adb devices command it does not show my device,plz help

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Is USB debugging enabled? If so, check for other USB settings, and change it from MTP to Disk Drive or to whatever USB modes are listed. If nothing works, testing it out on another PC might be worth a shot.

samad

yes its enabled,tried MTP,USB,CAMERA and CHARGING mode too and yeah on laptop and pc too..still it donot show my device in list of attached devices. i am using micromax a121,android 4.3

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You’ve done everything, so save for the proper drivers not being installed, I’m not sure what to recommend. If the device is rooted, you might be able to run the commands right on the device itself with a terminal emulator (let me know if that’s the case and I can tell you the proper command).

my phone was showing already default install location as 2:external but this means only that you can install to this location if app was allowed. what is the sense? I dont understand. I have a menu under storage as default install locaiton as well. I can tweak over there. Basically my phone has 3 storages. internal storage and external 2 sd cards. how do i do that?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If you’re correct about your storage solution, then it could be that the phone defaults to 2, which would be one of the SD cards. You might be able to use “3” and see i that triggers another SD card, but I’m not sure it will.

sessizciglik

I have tried that already but unfortunately it doesnt work and i cant move my apps to 2nd sd card which is much larger. do you know any solution to that? I cant swap sd cards because first one is somewhere embedded into phone. it comes together with phone.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I truly have no idea, to be honest. I’ve never dealt with a phone that had such an usual storage solution. It’d be much easier if there were just one SD card. Are these literally external cards you can plug in yourself?

kingson bedasto

thanks so much!!! my biggest problem has been solved. thanks again!! have a good one!

Click on “VIEW ALL DOWNLOADS AND SIZES” and download the Mac version. The tweak will run the same way; you’ll need to open a terminal and navigate to the folder that adb is in and run the commands.

dominic

It not working for me

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Is there an error?

Jason Dymnicki

Once I get to the “adb device” command, it lists devices… but mine is empty. Can’t do anything beyond that.

I have a ZTE Majesty –very limited internal storage, so this would be HUGE if it were successful. (Android version is 4.1.2) When I go into Windows 8’s device management, it says there is no driver for the phone, but I can transfer files and pictures and whatever else from both the phone and the SD card, but not apps. Help?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Usually if no devices show up when you run ‘adb devices’, it’s because the proper driver is not installed. Just to make sure, did you install the ZTE driver? This one might work:

You’ll also want to make sure that USB debugging is on, and if both of these things still don’t work, you might want to fiddle with the USB connection settings (MTP vs. Disk Drive and settings like those).

If you have a second PC, you might want to test it out there as well. Or, if your device is rooted, you can install a terminal emulator and have an even easier time running the tweak (let me know if you are in fact rooted).

Eric

Will It works on Lenovo A850?

Alexkvw

wow, excellent tweak!

Kleber Santos

worked galaxy s4 mini.

Ghanesh RS

Thank u so much! works like a charm!

but how to force non movable apps like fb/whatsapp to sd card without rooting ?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Apps that come pre-installed on the device can’t be moved, and some developers see fit that their apps can’t be moved even with the tweak. WhatsApp is a good example, because it’s an IM app – it requires speed above all in order to work properly. I wouldn’t recommend moving the app even if you were able to.

If you installed WhatsApp after-the-fact, you might be able to uninstall it, apply the tweak, then reinstall it, and hope it copies to the external storage.

Ghanesh RS

Thanks for the suggestion…Yes I tried reinstalling the whatsapp updates to see if the tweak works … however I wasnt able to uninstall & reinstall it since there was no option to do so…however I would like to try & see if I would be able to move it to SD card to fig out the speed & if it works…Plz lemme know if theres any option to atleast move the whatsapp media to sd card since that occupies a lotta space on the phone

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Since you can’t uninstall WhatsApp, I assume that means it was pre-installed on the device, which is unfortunate. I think the best thing you can do in that case is just uninstall the updates (assuming you don’t use it) and keep it like that. It seems certain to me the only way to truly remove it is to root the phone and use some app that can uninstall or forceably move it. Not a great option.

Indra Setiono

Is it doable on moto g? Because I can’t find greyed out move to SD card button unlike the pics

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Does your Moto G have an SD card slot? I have the Moto G, and it doesn’t. Either way, if your phone happens to have an SD card and that option doesn’t show up at ALL, make sure you’re running the latest version of Android. I believe the option was removed in 4.2, but returned with 4.3.

Indra Setiono

It doesn’t have SD card, I have clear all cache and free up to 2.5 gb , and I’m running on 4.4.2

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

The Move to SD option is for moving an app off of the phone and onto an SD card, so since that phone doesn’t have an SD card slot, the option doesn’t exist. I’m not sure I understand exactly what you’re trying to do, to be honest.

Indra Setiono

Lol I read it wrong, off topics question, my case : I have moto g with no SD card and 2.5gb free space but when I install an apk from play store I kept getting insufficient free space. Is it possible that you know some solution since you got moto g as well?

Tem Maon

this tweak doesnt work on android 4.2

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I believe the Move to SD option was removed from that version, for some reason. It then returned with 4.3. If you could confirm for me whether or not the Move to SD option is there at all (even with faded text), I’d appreciate it!

Renaldo Xhahu

Wow thanks. I cant believe it actually works. But i have to ask, what “potential headaches” will i encounter if i don’t revert it back to the default write location???

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If you don’t revert back, Android will try to install everything to the SD card, even apps that are specifically designed not to be. That could result in broken apps, or apps that just don’t work too well. There’s nothing wrong really with keeping the tweak, but just don’t be surprised if problems with future apps arise.

Renaldo Xhahu

But i will be able to move that to internal storage if that happens right?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I can’t say for sure. Simple logic would imply that you could, but these devices are not really meant to be used with the default storage being the external storage. You won’t break anything important by doing this though, so you may as well test it out, and revert if you run into too many issues.

Renaldo Xhahu

Thanks, you’ve been very helpful.

Mr. O’Cousin

This worked on my LG F6. It took me a few times of trial and error (error on my part) to figure it out, but I got most of my apps moved over. I appreciate the tutorial.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’m glad it helped, and those roadblocks were just temporary :)

Ron

I also have a F6 and the device is not being recognized.
How do I excute the ADB from inside the folder?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If your device is not being recognized, you might want to double check that a proper driver isn’t installed.

So if I used this to move WhatsApp, will it move it while it’s still installed? and will it move all the media with it? [I’m talking 4.5Gb of media] Or do I have to move the media and databases using a file manager, and then reinstall?

Hoping for granular detail here – Thanks in advance Rob, great community support you’re offering!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

The media question is hard to answer, because I’m not sure how WhatsApp actually stores it. It could be that it stores that data on the microSD card already (kind of like how Spotify will download music to the microSD card instead of internal storage). I don’t believe testing this would hurt, but if you are able to backup the data first, I’d do that for -sure-.

Also, if WhatsApp came preinstalled on the phone, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to move it with this tweak. In that case, a rooting might be necessary (and then you’d probably have to use a different app than App 2 SD).

If you do go through with the move, let me know how you make out!

Joe

Your picture says that you can move google+ and google drive, but I can’t. Is there something else I’m supposed to do? I’m using an LG optimus F6

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I could move those apps because they were not pre-installed on the device (I installed them from the store). Chances are your apps were pre-installed, which means they cannot be moved via this tweak, unfortunately.

Hitesh

Hello…..
Is it work for android 4.4.2 ?
Is it void the warranty ?

Hitesh

I mean will it void the warranty of device ?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

No, it doesn’t void a warranty. It’s a basic built-in feature of Android. And yes, it will work with 4.4.2.

Chris

will this work with the gt-s5660?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If the option to Move to SD exists in the app settings, then yes, it should work.

OIby48

Didn’t work for me! :( My phone is a Motorola Moto G 4G and even with the tweak enabled there are lots of apps that cannot be moved.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Your Moto G has a microSD slot? I was under the impression none of those did (I have a Moto G and it doesn’t have one).

OIby48

The Moto G 4G has one, which is specifically why I went for the 4G.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Oh, that’s good to know. As for the problem, not all apps can be moved, as the article states. If the apps were pre-installed with the device, they can very rarely be moved, because they’re considered to be part of the OS (the only thing you can do is uninstall updates, which might make no difference at all in space). Unfortunately, the only way around this would be to root the device I believe, and that’s something I wouldn’t personally do in case refreshing the OS down the road became problematic. It might not though… I just have no experience with that.

Dexter Joseph

trying this with v4.4.2 on my nvidia shield tablet. i set to mtp mode and enabled USB debugging mode in the developer options. for some reason i cant seem to get platform-tools to discover my device, even though my pc does at this point. plz help!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I think this is typical of tablets, because proper drivers (like those for smartphones) are rarely available. I can honestly say I’ve never had a tablet come up in adb.

However, since you rooted your device, you should be able to install a terminal emulator and run the commands through it. The commands are identical, except you don’t say ‘adb” at the start; you begin at “shell” or “pm” (I forget; but I think it’s shell). I don’t have a rooted device here to test at the moment. Make sure that you give the terminal emulator superuser access once you start it.

Dexter Joseph

sounds like its worth a try. how would one go about installing such a terminal emulator? is there one in particular that you would recommend? i see one on the google Play store, but it cant be that easy… can it?

ok so seems to me like im getting somewhere now. i can view install location using “pm get-install-location”, however i cannot change it using “pm set-install-location 2″. i assume this is because i haven’t enabled superuser access yet. i searched the settings and cannot find such option. it is a command that needs to be input?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

The setting for superuser wouldn’t be in the app itself, but rather is something controlled by whatever superuser app you’re using (SuperSU is a popular one). Simply restarting the app might fix the problem.

How hard was it to root your SHIELD Tablet? Is it reversible? I have one here I could root if you truly get stuck.

Dexter Joseph

i will give that a try.

it was insanely easy to root this device. first have “ES File Explorer” installed from play store. second, go to settings > security and check “unknown sources” so it is enabled. next, using the tablet, visit ” https://towelroot.com/ ” then tap on the logo (resembles half-life symbol). and download using “ES Downloader”. when done, tap “open file” then “install”. you may get a warning recommending not to install, but just check the box and tap “install anyway”. once installed, open the app, then tap “make it ra1n”. a message will confirm if it succeeded. last step is to open “ES File Explorer” and enable “root explorer” on the left tab menu. your shield is now rooted.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Cheers for the instructions. On account of those not mentioning a super user program, I’d recommend installing SuperSU and see if that helps you get the command to work. Are you 100% sure you’re actually rooted? It seems weird to me that you didn’t already have an SU app, but admittedly I’ve only rooted a couple of devices in the past.

Dexter Joseph

originally i had only done this to enable using a dualshock3 controller as a shield wireless controller, using the “sixaxis controller” app found on play store. it works almost flawlessly for most games. i recommend trying this if you dont yet have the shield controller.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I do have the controller and have been enjoying it quite a bit so far. I’m in the middle of reviewing the tablet ;-)

If you can’t get anywhere with the adb command, let me know and I’ll try to root the device. I hope it’s reversible though since I really never have to root my device for anything. Just don’t want it to affect future updates.

Dexter Joseph

it was removed automatically upon updating my device to 4.4.2, so i had to do it over again after the update. other than that, the update proccess seems to have gone perfecly fine. hope this answers your concern

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Oh – alright. Did installing SuperSU help you get the command to work then, or are you just leaving it for now?

Dexter Joseph

i just needed to take a “sanity break” lol. i have just installed SuperSU, but i am struggling with figuring out how to use it now to grant super user access to the terminal emulator. i dont think i’ve ever had this much trouble trying to modify anything before haha

Dexter Joseph

also i just noticed that you can do a full unroot of your device using SuperSU. its in the settings, under “cleanup”

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Oh, sweet. I am testing things out now. The device is rooted, but it seems a little too easy. Usually rooting was an exercise in patience. I was able to create a folder under /mnt which tells me it is in fact rooted though. Going to try the terminal emulator trick in a moment.

Dexter Joseph

i think my problem right now is that i dont know how to configure apps for SuperSU. all i get right now when i open SuperSU is a screen that says “No apps configured”. just not sure where to go from here. I should note that i am fairly new to the Android scene. I’ve done just about everything there is to be done with iPhones/iPads/iPods, PSP, PS3, Wii, WiiU, and Xbox360. Most of which iv’e done with little to no help. that being said, i cant help but feel like a useless newbie with this problem. i greatly appreciate your help and and patience :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Doh, I forgot about a vital step. After SuperSU is installed, and inside of the terminal emulator, you need to type in “su” without quotes. That will trigger SuperSU to ask if you want to grant access to the app. After that, the pm set-install-location 2 command will work (I just tested it).

Dexter Joseph

Haha well that was the missing piece of the puzzle, so to speak. default location is now set to SD card. thank you so much for your time and effort. i’ve been banging my head against the wall on this for a couple days now. thanks for all the help, oh great and wise one :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Haha, if I were wise I would have remembered that ‘su’ requirement :P I am glad to help! Be sure to set it back to “0” whenever you’re done moving stuff, just to be on the safe side (or don’t because it’s a pain in the butt, just recognize that not EVERYTHING should be installed or moved to the external storage).

Dexter Joseph

yeah i definitely will, as i have had some similar issues with other modified devices in the past. i am mainly doing this to move over some larger “stubborn” games away form my precious internal memory. most of my other apps still on the internal memory are under 30MB, so they arent really bothering me so much. Thanks again. Cheers!

Yuehan

I have samsung galaxy y s5360. the only android version of it is gingerbread 2.3.6. what will i use/do?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If the Move to SD option exists in the apps page, you should be good to go. You’d just run the commands in the setInstallLocation manner rather than set-install-location.

alfredo

i got the message say “error: device not found”. Please help.. i did everything correct, i have enabled USB debug but why still no device found?

i think i install it correctly and i also think that i have installed it a few months ago. i will try installing it again.

alfredo

i will try installing it again because i think i have installed it a few months ago.

alfredo

it now works.. thank you :)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Great to hear :D

Eduard Žanony

My Samsung Galaxy Ace is not found :(

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Did you install the phone drivers from Samsung’s website?

Eduard Žanony

There isn’t driver, just the one for Windows utility. They have just Kies SW which is for managing files, photos, firmware updates, etc. I found it useless. It is detected by Windows and I can manage files on my SD card but when I run command ‘adb devices’ is doesn’t list any and if I try second command it pops ‘error: device not found’ or something like that.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

In my experience, if there’s no Windows driver, it’s not common for the device to pop-up, though I might be wrong. It’s just that none of my tablets ever show up in adb, whereas the phones do, because I had a driver to install.

Nonetheless, the only advice I could give is to fiddle with the USB settings on the phone if there are any, mostly with the connection mode. If your device is rooted, you can do this tweak right on the phone.

Eduard Žanony

The driver is installed from Microsoft server automatically by Windows services. Yep. It got connection mode, which I tried but without success.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Since the phone is older, you might want to consider rooting the device, because it’s not likely to get any more updates, and I’m guessing hasn’t already in a little while. You can then run the tweak on the phone itself, using a terminal emulator.

Eduard Žanony

I am not sure about that. If I root it can I get rid of that T-mobile start screen?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You technically could, though it might be dangerous territory to enter. Rooting a device simply means you gain the highest level of access to the OS’ file system. To replace something like the start screen you’d probably want to use a custom ROM, but that goes beyond the scope of what I know. I keep my devices pretty default.

Eduard Žanony

Don’t you btw know how they add it there?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Maybe I am misunderstanding. Are you talking about the start screen that appears when you boot your phone, or are you talking about the lock screen or your launcher? Those can be changed easily, but the boot up screen can’t be unless you root.

Eduard Žanony

When you buy a cell from telecomunication company their logo and sound may appear when you start your phone.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Okay, I was originally correct them. So yes, you’d need a custom ROM for that after rooting. You could possibly replace it other ways, but I am thinking it’d be far more intensive than simply replacing the ROM. If that’s your biggest beef with your phone you’re kind of lucky ;-)

Siddhesh Kotawadekar

hi friend,i have sony experia M mobile
i did all the steps as you have written in this article
after that it shows
[ FXN.ASD ] Error: App2Sd is not supported in your device. Drop change request
what to do please tell me

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

What version of Android runs on the device? It could be that your version doesn’t have the “Move to SD” option, though please let me know if it does. Sometimes errors can happen like that and they don’t actually mean anything, so after changing to 2, run the get command and see if it returns a 2.

Rajith Right

I am thank full for post.. I had a issue while executing this command :
adb shell pm get-install-location (Android 4.x)
This results in a numerical value to state where the default install location is (0: phone, 2: external).
when i give as 2 its shows error as “No programs found on internal and external”.
can u please clarify this.. Thank you..

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Just to be sure; you’re not including the ‘(Android 4.x) part in the command, are you? You’re just supposed to type out ‘adb shell pm get-install-location’.

Please let me know and then we can proceed.

Loser Say What

I did this with my Moto G 2nd gen and it worked perfectly! I didn’t buy a 32GB card for nothing! Thanks for these instructions. 5GB of internal memory is not enough for me to work with. If you have this phone, use the command by “Android 4x”.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Thanks for the update, I’m glad to know it works well with that phone! That’s the one feature that makes me jealous… I’m using the first-gen ;-)

http://katiemanson.blogspot.com Katie Manson

hello, i have an Sony Ericsson xperia arc S with 4.0.3 android and apps dont move, do you have any suggestions ?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If I recall correctly, that’s a phone that a lot of people had an issue with here. Does the “Move to SD” button not even exist when you go into the settings of an app? There were a couple of Android versions that didn’t have that option at all, so if you’re using one of them, and are unable to upgrade, you might be out of luck. If your device is rooted, you MAY be able to force the tweak on the phone itself, but you’d need a third party app to handle the moving aspect (and I am not familiar with any – the one I mention in the article just brings you to the built-in function on Android).

http://katiemanson.blogspot.com Katie Manson

my phone has the move to sd card option :) but i had no luck

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Are you trying to move an app that was pre-installed on the device? If so, that’s likely the reason. You might want to use App2SD without the tweak to see what comes up, and then apply the tweak and run the app again, and see if anything extra is added. It’s very rare when no apps could be moved.

http://katiemanson.blogspot.com Katie Manson

One of the apps -facebook is pre-installed, the other two are not but i tried with and without the tweak and it stilldoesnt work, i also used the app

Alexander Yug

On my HTC Sensation ‘Move to SD card’ option still greyed out.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Are you trying to move an app that was pre-installed on the device? Those apps are rarely moveable, unfortunately.

Maria

Thank you so much! It worked on my old phone Samsung Galaxy Gio and I was finally able to move WhatsApp :D

Actually, I might as well delete the entire website. Seems fair given you can’t extract an archive that most others haven’t had an issue with.

My real, non-sarcastic answer is to download 7-zip.

Debdas Mukherjee

I have followed the instruction given and my device also detected
properly. (It is Micromaax unit 2 model 106, Kitkat) but when I tried
to execute the commmand ‘adb shell pm get-install-location 2′ the
message appeard in the prompt “WARNING: linker: libvc1dec_sa.ca7.so has
text relocations. This is wasting memory and is a security risk. Please
fix.0[auto]” and everything is end here. plz help me.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Just to be sure, that command you ran should say “set”, not “get”. When you use the “get” command, you don’t need to put a number after it, that’s just to set.

Also, I believe I’ve seen that error before, but I don’t actually think it’s an error. It’s some developer message that doesn’t apply. If you run:

adb shell pm set-install-location 2

and then:

adb shell pm get-install-location

And it tells you 2, not 0, then the tweak worked.

poppussywarner

Error: Could not access the package manager. Is the system running? What does this mean. Plus my device comes as Emulator-5554 ?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That’s extremely odd. Did you download our small 1.7MB archive, or did you download the full package from the Android site? I ask because I just updated the archive the other day, to match the latest version of the adb app, and this is a new error to me. Just in case, maybe you can try the old archive instead:

It could be totally unrelated to the version really, but it might be worth giving it a shot.

Debdas Mukherjee

Thanx Rob, I have done it and my device is responsing very fine. I have also moved preinstalled Facebook apps to SD card …and that is working well. Now another issue is if I going to Root my device after applying this ‘move to SD card’ methode will I face any problem ? If you have any idea please enlighten me.Thanx again.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Rooting won’t affect anything at all. All rooting does is grant you greater access to the file system; it won’t change anything other than that. Glad it’s working out well for you!

I only had 1GB of internal storage on my device so you can guess how much this article helped me. Thank you! But right now I have another issue. I did not set the default location back to 0 immediately because there were some apps I haven’t finished installing yet. I did this tweak just the other day, but now I can’t access my SD card at all. I’m pretty sure it’s not an issue with the SD card because I can still access my files when I plug my phone in to my laptop. I tried rebooting my phone and even did a hard reset. Everything would be ok at first. The SD card option would still be available when I open the File Manager, but when I try moving an app to the SD card again it just says “SD card removed. Insert a new one.” Can you please help me? I am using Android 4.2.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Maybe you could try unmounting the card in the storage section, and then remounting it, and see what happens. If your SD card is still set to 2, you might want to set back to 0, reboot the device, and then set to 2 again to move some apps. Of all the comments here this is the first time I’ve heard of this problem.

If it’s not that, I’d fiddle with the different USB modes your phone might have.

joseph negranza

nevermind i got it already. Thanks though!

Mukul Kumar

it is not work for me when i do above this step’s my location chang automatically to 0[auto].

My phone model is: micromax canvas doodle 3
OS:- 4.4.2 (kitkat)

PLEASE HELP ME………..

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Are you saying that you set it to 2, and it reverts back to 0 automatically? That sounds like a permissions error of some sort. Is your phone rooted, by chance? If so you could run the tweak on the device itself.

Nilesh Bansal

location prompt is not working everytime it says could not connect the package manager.is the system running? plzzz helppppp

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You might want to try it on a different PC, though it could be the fault of the phone. Is the phone rooted, by chance? If so, you could run the tweak directly on the phone.

Titanium Backup

If you have a rooted device just install Titanium Backup (premium) then just long-press on the app in rhe app list then you’ll see the option there “send to sd card”. Any app. Did it with the space hog FB app.

J.D.

Tried this on Kit Kat 4.4.2 and it appeared to work allowing me the option of sending all non google apps to sd. What really happened was all the apps were staying on the internal storage. Had to hook phone back up and change the default storage back to internal.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Some of the apps don’t move entirely, only a bulk of them will move. This is especially true with games (though bigger ones normally copy most of the data to an external card if one is available anyway).

Matthew ت Matwej Kováč

cannot install drivers for LG p760,, does it work for this phone too ??

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

This isn’t a phone-specific tweak, but instead an Android-specific one. If it has an SD card slot, this tweak should work. You must make sure you even have the “Move to SD” option available in the app screen, even if it’s faded out. Certain Android versions got rid of this, for some reason.

Gordon Freeman

Sadly this didn’t work for me at all. The commands ran, the status is showing that I can install to SD…but nothing will actually move there. Office Mobile (the biggest space hog) is recalcitrant, as are many other apps I would like to free up space for. Sigh. 64gb micro SD card in my Evo 3d, and like 11gb used while my phone chokes to death.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

In some cases, not all of the app will move, but -some- should. There are the odd apps that refuse to move regardless of this tweak, but most games should have no problem moving. Also, if an app was pre-installed on the device, your chances of being able to move it properly are low.

Gordon Freeman

Thanks for the response; I did scoot a few apps over…I’ll likely root the device and just force stuff over there, and uninstall a few others (getting MS Office to install on my HTC Evo 3d was a neat trick but I doubt I’ll ever use it).

shay

Keeps sayin adb is not recognized as a command

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It sounds like you are not in the proper folder. It’s best to go to the folder through the file manager, then while holding Shift, right-click anywhere in the folder. Then you will see an option to open up a command prompt in that folder, and then you can test it simply by typing in ‘adb’ and enter.

Jeremiah Cather

I can get up to the point where I am about to change the install location, and I get an Error message sent back, “Error: java.lang.SecurityException: Package android does not belong to 2000″ Not sure what this means.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I’d recommend running this tweak on another computer. The mention of Java tells me that it could be the fact that Java’s missing, but that’d be too simple. adb is prone to throwing off truly bizarre errors, so I’d just test it in a different PC.

If the phone is rooted, you could run it on the phone itself as well.

Jeremiah Cather

Thanks for the quick reply Rob! I can try a different computer, but my phone is also rooted. How would I run this on the phone?

Once the app is open and you have root permissions, type in ‘su’ without quotes to enter root. Then you can use the commands in the article., but without the adb sh at the start, so eg: pm get-install-location

Cedric W

It half worked for me, I couldn’t move the apps to the sd but I found that apps would install straight to the sd card. What might I have missed?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If the tweak is left intact, then Android will begin installing to the SD card if that app happens to be one of the ones that can be moved. I wouldn’t really recommend keeping that tweak active though, just in case anything odd happens as a result.

If apps are pre-installed on the device, usually they can’t be moved, and beyond that, latency-sensitive apps like IM clients and stuff usually can’t be moved either. If your device is rooted, you’ll probably have far greater luck.

Piyush

Google products are not getting moved. For eg. chrome, gmail, youtube, google services don’t have move to sd option neither does it show in “App2Sd” although WhatsApp got moved.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If the app is pre-installed, chances are it can’t be moved. In some other cases, an app can’t be moved because the developer enforces that rule. If the device is rooted, you may have more luck.

Piyush

So if I re-install chrome, with adb shell pm set-install-location 2, then will it get installed in sd card directly?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It depends. Was Chrome preinstalled on the device? If you’re able to uninstall it entirely and run that tweak, then yes, it could go to the SD card. You risk nothing by trying. It could be that Chrome is one of those apps that changed its internal rules since I captured those screenshots above, I’m not sure.

Piyush

Okay. Looks like Google product can’t be moved without rooting.
Thanks. Cheers.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Not too much of a surprise, but unfortunate nonetheless :S

Jeremiah Gudelis

This is what I get after running “adb devices”:
adb server is out of date. killing…
ADB server didn’t ACK
* failed to start daemon *
error: protocol foult

Can anyone walk me true this issue? Thanks in advance!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It’s truly incredible just how many different errors this thing is prone to spitting back. I honestly don’t think across the 800 or so comments here that I’ve seen the same error twice.

Tablets are hit-or-miss with this tweak, and I’d imagine the situation would be even worse with a Chinese one. Your best bet is to root the device, and then run the tweak right on the device itself, using a terminal emulator.

Karin82

I have an LG Optimus F3 and I’ve tried to run the tweak- my drivers are up to date and supposedly my phone is connected but when I check for the device it says “list of devices attached” but it doesn’t come up with anything. If I try to probe for the install location it just says “error: device not found.” Help! What am I doing wrong?

hey?

where I have to download android adb?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Our zip archive is listed a couple of times in the article. Alternatively you can download the mammoth official package:

This is ACE – and since my tablet has an internal storage that it does not seem to reveal by USB (only the inserted SD card) – I can probably avoid some of the negatives … removed the inserted SD so that it MUST be placing on the device’s internal extra staorage

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You can’t access the tablet’s main storage via USB? That’s kind of strange.

Matthew

It’s a cheapie – the Output X2 (an It7008-3) – to be honest, even the microSD over USB is rather buggy – and while the OutputX site says it’s £109.99 (and on the back of the box) they were going a lot cheaper than that!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Cheap or not, that just strikes me as being so bizarre. Plugging a tablet in should be like plugging a thumb drive in. Oh well, if it’s inexpensive, it’s a small niggle, perhaps.

Suraz Joshi

how do i update my micromax phone which is currently running on android 4.4.2 kitkat to lollypop 5.0 please help me

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That’s well beyond the scope of what’s being discussed here. Your best bet is to go to Google and search for that, or look to see if you can put something like Cyanogen on your phone.

Fireball Itzel Sturges

Hey Rob, I have an LG L90 and apparently it IS recognised by my computer, as you can see, but I can’t seem to be able to run the tweak, because when I type “adb devices” it doesn’t show up like it’s supposed to (??) I tried multiple times and it still won’t show up in the command prompt. But it IS recognised by my computer. Could you please help me out? D: I really REALLY need this. Thank you!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Unfortunately, just because it’s recognized by the PC, it doesn’t mean that it can properly interface with it outside of copying data back and forth. Have you downloaded the official driver for your phone? You’d want to start here:

Usually when a device doesn’t show up, installing the official driver (and possibly the software) will help fix it. Also, if your phone happens to be rooted, let me know. You could conduct the tweak right on your phone if it’s rooted.

Fireball Itzel Sturges

Oh!! I didn’t do it because I thought that if it recognised it, it meant I didn’t need the drivers, BUT I JUST INSTALLED THEM! And they worked!!!! :D Omg, thank you very very very much!!

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Nice! Glad you got it sorted out!

shashidhar sharma

It didnt work for me, it is showing- adbwinapi.dll is missing… Dont know what to do

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Did you move adb.exe outside of its folder? adb.exe and AdbWinApi.dll should be in the same folder.

Laura Smith

It worked but when I try to install apps some of them are downloading and then the error “Insufficient storage available” pops up. Any idea what to do with it?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Did you happen to set the storage to 2, and leave it there? After the tweak is applied, and you move your apps, you should run the tweak again to set it back to 0. What you are experiencing might be one of the side-effects of leaving it on 2.

Laura Smith

I set it back to 0 and everything works fine, thank you so much.

Dimitris Tambakis

Could you please let me know if this works for Android Lollipop 5.0.2 ? What are the commands for this version?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

The commands should be the exact same as 4.0, though I can’t confirm for sure. I have a Lollipop device, but it’s a tablet and is not detected on the PC through adb.

Manvith Penklagar

for android 5 lollipop ? watz the cmd ?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Do the adb commands above not work? You might need a newer version of adb than what’s provided in this article.

Manvith Penklagar

cmd = command

http://funnygoogle.weebly.com Trevor B

This tweak is simply awesome and the guide for telling you not to move things like widgets is very nice. 10/10 will tweak again. (but really it’s an awesome tweak :P)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Glad it helped! Tweak on!

Andrei David

Thank you! Very USEFUL! …. but what do you think about system app like chrome?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

If an app is pre-installed on the device, it can’t always be moved, unfortunately. You’d have to root the device in order to work around that.

Andrei David

Thank you very much!

Riya

Hi Rob,
The article is really great, but the situation that made me come here to this article is weird. Let me put it in short.
Neccessity:
I have been using Whatsapp with a particular number for a couple of years and am continuing to use it with the same number though i lost the SIM some months ago just bcos to avoid giving a hassle to my friends updating a new number. Now my Moto G got updated to lollipop and i dont like few features in it so am planning to go for CM 11, if am flashing it my whatspp will ask for a re-verification on my old number.. which is not possible.

Query: moving the whatsapp to SD card (now) and again moving back the app to Phone memory after flashing CM11. will it avoid the re-verification? thereby i can use the same number for few years??

Please help me out. Thanks in advance. i am not a too much geek. sorry if my question was stupid:)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I am not super familiar with WhatsApp, but I don’t understand why you wouldn’t simply be able to transfer the account over to a new number. People change numbers all the time, and if that means they have to start with a fresh WhatsApp account every time, that’s a little ridiculous. I wish I knew more about the process.

Nonetheless, what you’d be trying to do is challenging. This tweak moves over the app itself, not its profile, and that profile is probably stored simply on the main storage (there’s a folder called “WhatsApp” in the root). That only seems to store old messages, photos, and some other things, though the databases there could include the account information.

What you’d have to do is copy that folder to your PC or something, and then copy it to the same location on your new OS before you install WhatsApp. And then you’d hope that WhatsApp would see it and just run with it. I was quite sure WhatsApp needed an active number though, so I am really not sure how it’d work if it were tied to a dead one.

Bear

I am still unable to move pre-installed apps such as chrome or Google drive. However, I am able to install new apps and have them load directly to SD without an “insufficient storage” error that I would receive before. My phone is rooted and running 4.4.2 and using a custom ROM. Any ideas why I still can’t move these apps?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Pre-installed apps usually can’t be moved over, so if those came with the phone, that’s why. Also I’d recommend being careful with keeping the location to 2, as it might cause some oddities. But you could probably hold off until you actually experience such an oddity.

http://www.micro-sys.ro/ Ciprian Borundel

Good job! It really works!!!

Gian Carlo Benitez

Please help me with my phone Huawei Y220 U10, I would like to move some of my applications to SD Card. i followed all the steps above, unfortunately, nothing happen.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

At which part did nothing happen? Note that some pre-install apps can’t be moved over. If that’s not the problem, did you successfully set the tweak, and see your device with ‘adb devices’?

Gian Carlo Benitez

Thank you for the response. Anyway, actually i downloaded a Root Explorer and then i looked for the System Folder where i found all the apps of my phone. On the System I permitted everything, such as “Read Write Slip etc” things like that, and suddenly my phone freeze. I removed the battery then put it back. I hit the power button but my phone opens up to Startup Logo only.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

I am not familiar with using apps like Root Explorer to move apps. I like to be safe and just use the built-in option in Android, and if an app can’t be moved, just deal with it (I don’t root my devices, generally). So I am really not sure how to help you with your problem. You might want to go to http://www.xda-developers.com/ and post your question in a relevant forum, because your phone needs a lot more TLC than I am able to provide. If your OS is borked after rooting, you might have to reinstall the system ROM.

Your new gameboy

i have problem when i write adb devices it shows blank list. what to do???

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Have you installed the official driver for your device? You could start here (look at the company table below):

Wtf!
I cannot connect my Sony Xperia c to computer!
list of attached devices is empty they don’t accept my mobile what should I do?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

You need to install the phone’s driver, but the problem is, I can’t find a legitimate source for that particular phone at all. Sony’s site doesn’t list it either on the consumer side or the developer side.

Is your phone rooted, by chance? If it is, you can apply the tweak right on the phone itself (you’d need to download a terminal emulator).

Andrew Mitchell

Very informative although I have an issued where adb will not find my device. I have turned on USB debugging and it is connecting to the PC as a MTP device but still will not find my tablet. Any ideas as to how to overcome this would be greatly appreciated.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

It just sounds like you’re missing an official driver. You should start here:

2015, Android 4.4.2, and this method still works! Thanks. Unfortunately, all system/pre-loaded apps still can’t be moved and even some Play apps weren’t movable, so it didn’t totally mitigate the fact that my phone only has 133 MB internal storage available. (But hey, I did only play $53 for it.)

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Glad to hear that it’s worked for you. As far as I’m aware, it should technically work for Lollipop 5.0 as well, but my phone doesn’t have an SD card slot, so I can’t test.

Duncan

Ran it getting storage 2 returned on the check but still greyed out move to SD options on Moto G with 4.4, any ideas?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Some apps that shipped with the device might not be movable. If you run the app shown above to see what’s movable before, and then apply the tweak, and see what’s movable after, there should be a definite difference.

Duncan

I am getting the same list of apps as movable before and after with appmgr III, greyed out in both instances. my device seems to run emulated sd and split the internal memory (where i actually want it on hardware sd) could this be an issue? Thanks for the quick reply.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

That could be the issue. I almost wish I had that second-gen Moto G to test it out, because it’s so frustrating to not know what the problem is. It COULD be related to the emulated memory; I’m not sure. If you are able to set the “2” and then run the “get” command and it returns 2, then it definitely seems like it’d be the emulated memory getting in the way. How you could get around that, I’m not quite sure.

Duncan

Sorry, I think cached web page mage think my response hadn’t been sent. Is there an adb command to list the available storage locations so I could see if 2 was likely the emulated sd?

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Unfortunately I am not sure a command like that exists. Google tells me that variants do, but it all seems to be developer-related, that can’t be done using the adb command tool. You’d think there would be a simple command like ‘adb list-storage-devices’, but I am not seeing it.

Duncan

Getting the same app results as movable before and after with the above app, still greyed out in settings. My device is running emulated sd storage partition on internal memory could this be an issue? Thanks for the quick reply

Rob

Hi Rob. Your post looked very useful so I thought I would try this. Have downloaded the folder from your server. When I tried to open the adb application I got a warning about the certificate not being verified. Should that be a worry?

Thanks.

http://techgage.com/ Rob Williams

Are you able to take a screenshot? It doesn’t sound like it’s related to either the site or the archive, because the site doesn’t use a security certificate, and the software doesn’t, either.

It could be an anti-malware scanner intervening or something, but it still doesn’t make sense. If you have fast Internet and no bandwidth cap, you could download the entire archive from the Android developer site.